AutoAction
FREE DIGITAL MAGAZINE SIGN UP

SUNDAY SUPPORT REPORT

By Heath McAlpine

Date posted: March 26, 2017

Fabian Coulthard looked certain to complete a DJR Team Penske sweep for the weekend but a puncture has cost him the final race of the weekend.

Coulthard was initially leading comfortably after beating pole-sitter Jamie Whincup off the rolling start. However, behind there was chaos as Tim Blanchard and James Moffat were both spun as the standard Turn One congestion caused havoc. Cam Waters was also a victim as he was squeezed by his teammates Mark Winterbottom and Jason Bright.

Once Coulthard had pitted to replace his left front tyre, Whincup couldn’t take advantage as he was passed by a resurgent Chaz Mostert, though Whincup soon struck trouble when his left rear tyre punctured approaching Turn 11.

This left Mostert a clear leader all the way to the flag, finishing 9.7s ahead of Shane van Gisbergen, who fought off the race long advances of Tim Slade. Slade was followed to the flag by Todd Kelly in the lead Nissan and James Courtney.

Whincup’s bad luck was Coulthard’s good fortune as this gave the DJR Team Penske driver the weekend.

Teammate Scott McLaughlin finished 17th in the final race after suffering steering issues in the Turn One scuffle, but finished runner up for the weekend as Chaz Mostert completed the podium.

A chaotic final race for the Australian GT Championship saw Liam Talbot in the Walkinshaw Porsche take victory ahead of Max Twigg and Geoff Emery.

Roger Lago led into the first corner as behind the Lamborghini there was action a plenty action as Fraser Ross and Max Twigg came together turning the Ross McLaren around, with the field lucky to avoid the stricken car. Further down the road Peter Major was pushed onto the grass, lost control and collected the Hector Lester Ferrari, which bought out the Safety Car.

Once the race had restarted it was under Safety Car again as Ryan Millier had a break issue approaching Turn One and glanced the wall, stopping at the exit of Turn 2.

At the restart Talbot worked his way to the front, overtaking both Twigg and Lago in short time as Emery made his move and out-braked Lago heading into Turn 13, grabbing the final podium spot.

The combined results for van der Linde and Emery gave them the round win as a consistent performance from both Lago and David Russell gave them second and Talbot completed the podium.

Alex Davison completed his rise through the field to win the final Carrera Cup race of the weekend. Davison battled with yesterday’s race winner Cameron McConville until Davison made his move on lap three at Turn Nine. Jaxon Evans battled his way and passed Dylan O’Keeffe to continue his recovery mission after missing race two with a failed driveshaft.

It was a dominate display from Davison as he opened a two second margin on McConville, while Nick McBride, David Wall and Evans battled to the line for fourth. It was a quiet race for McBride’s teammate Andre Heimgartner as he cruised to third place.

In Challenge Class it was Stephen Grove that completed a clean-sweep of the event ahead of the recovering Simon Ellingham and Marc Cini.

Overall, McConville took the weekend honours with his higher finishing position in the final race handing him the result ahead of McBride and Davison. Grove won the Challenge Class ahead of Dunlop Super2 driver Matt Palmer and the returning Dean Cook.

Check out a full review of all the action from the Australian Grand Prix in Auto Action 1707. Out Thursday April

Shares

Recent Stories

array (
  0 => 
  WP_Term::__set_state(array(
     'term_id' => 11,
     'name' => 'Latest News',
     'slug' => 'latest-news',
     'term_group' => 0,
     'term_taxonomy_id' => 11,
     'taxonomy' => 'category',
     'description' => '',
     'parent' => 0,
     'count' => 13202,
     'filter' => 'raw',
     'cat_ID' => 11,
     'category_count' => 13202,
     'category_description' => '',
     'cat_name' => 'Latest News',
     'category_nicename' => 'latest-news',
     'category_parent' => 0,
  )),
  1 => 
  WP_Term::__set_state(array(
     'term_id' => 4,
     'name' => 'Other',
     'slug' => 'other',
     'term_group' => 0,
     'term_taxonomy_id' => 4,
     'taxonomy' => 'category',
     'description' => '',
     'parent' => 0,
     'count' => 751,
     'filter' => 'raw',
     'cat_ID' => 4,
     'category_count' => 751,
     'category_description' => '',
     'cat_name' => 'Other',
     'category_nicename' => 'other',
     'category_parent' => 0,
  )),
  2 => 
  WP_Term::__set_state(array(
     'term_id' => 38,
     'name' => 'Supercars',
     'slug' => 'supercars',
     'term_group' => 0,
     'term_taxonomy_id' => 38,
     'taxonomy' => 'category',
     'description' => 'Supercars is the highest profile motorsport category in Australia',
     'parent' => 0,
     'count' => 4416,
     'filter' => 'raw',
     'cat_ID' => 38,
     'category_count' => 4416,
     'category_description' => 'Supercars is the highest profile motorsport category in Australia',
     'cat_name' => 'Supercars',
     'category_nicename' => 'supercars',
     'category_parent' => 0,
  )),
)
1269
Feeney

Fast Feeney leads Triple Eight 1-2

Triple Eight has carried on winning with Broc Feeney leading home teammate Will Brown in the opening sprint at Albert Park. The Thursday evening race was a chaotic affair, but […]

Brown steals championship lead 

Race 4 winner Will Brown has snatched the championship lead from Broc Feeney, who was forced to regret a late mistake. A great getaway helped Brown beat pole man Cam […]

Hill NZ livery 24

New look for Hill

Cameron Hill will roll out of the garage at the Taupo Super400 with a new livery on his #4 Matt Stone Racing Camaro. Having raced with Tyrepower blue in the […]

Tim Slade 24 PremiAir

Slade and PremiAir to take on Sydney 6 Hour Regularity Relay

Supercars star Tim Slade and Top Fuel drag racer Peter Xiberras will take on the New South Wales day-night 6 Hour Regularity Relay event in a family-run entry later this […]