SVG LAMENTS QUALIFYING PERFORMANCE

Shane van Gisbergen laments qualifying performance – Photo: InSyde Media

Triple Eight Racing driver Shane van Gisbergen was happy with the progress that he made through the pack in Race 30, but the New Zealander felt he had the pace to fight up the front.

By DAN McCARTHY

Starting from 22nd position on the grid after a disastrous qualifying session van Gisbergen again showed strong race pace and charged up the order.

In the opening laps van Gisbergen made a strong headway and would eventually go on to finish the race in fifth, gaining 17 positions more than anyone in a single race all season.

“It was pretty good, some pretty big dive bombs and stuff,” van Gisbergen said.

“That first lap was awesome with cars going everywhere and luckily I chose the right spots.

“It was fun, but I feel like we should have been up the front, it really wrecked a good car by not qualifying well.

“We had a fantastic car, boys did a great job, but starting up the back hurts, it was fun but not quite there.”

Since the Supercars Championship returned after the long enforced COVID-19 break van Gisbergen has claimed just one pole position.

As a result, van Gisbergen has had to utilise alternate pit stop strategies to leap up to where he feels the #97 Commodore should already be.

In recent rounds the Red Bull sponsored driver has been using the overcut strategy to great effect, particularly this weekend due to the low tyre degradation, as the 2016 Supercars champion explained.

“You’d love to pit with the other guys but because it is so hard to pass you have to get a tyre differential somehow,” he said.

“Around this track (layout) there is not much deg so you can stay out and go faster once the slower guys pit, so it kind of worked both ways this weekend.”

After the strong race pace shown today, the former Bathurst 12 Hour winner is looking forward to returning to The Mountain in search of that elusive maiden 1000 victory.

“Just (looking forward to) going racing and having some fun, should be pretty good, I have got an awesome car,” van Gisbergen said.

“Even if we qualify bad there, we have got a lot of time to make that up, it should be good, I can’t wait to get there.”

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