Anton de Pasquale rebounded from a disqualification in the second race of Supercars’ return weekend at Sydney Motorsport Park to pull off a second victory of the meeting in sublime style.
Having topped all qualifying and practice sessions through the weekend in his Shell V-Power Racing Mustang, de Pasquale was hunted by 23-year-old Erebus Motorsport rookie and his former Bathurst 1000 co-driver Will Brown in the final laps.
But de Pasquale, having lost a ten-second margin, held on grimly under immense pressure on older tyres to add a Sunday afternoon victory to his Saturday win under lights.
Brown – the gifted young Queenslander chasing a maiden victory in his first full-time campaign in the main game - said: “I needed to torch the tyres to get to him and I needed to get it done then.”
Asked if he over-used his tyres, Brown declared: “I definitely did, typical young bloke... I gave him a few taps.”
Jamie Whincup overtook championship leader and Red Bull Ampol Racing teammate Shane van Gisbergen to claim third, having finished ninth and seventh in the first two races.
Van Gisbergen had finished Saturday’s sprint race second behind de Pasquale after surging from sixth on the grid. From the same starting position in Sunday’s first sprint race, he claimed victory in lucky fashion after de Pasquale nearly stalled on the grid and his Shell V-Power teammate Will Davison suffered a major technical issue.
RACE 22 REPORT
The final sprint race started in chaotic fashion, with cars bumping and shunting each other in a chaotic jam-packed bunch. While the top four – De Pasquale, Will Brown, Jamie Whincup and Shane van Gisbergen – retained their starting positions, there was chaos further back.
Nick Percat and Chaz Mostert soared three places to sixth and seventh respectively, with Brodie Kostecki and Mark Winterbottom falling three and two places respectively to eighth and ninth.
Todd Hazelwood was involved in a manic first lap and took damage, which sent him spiralling from eighth to the back of the back with a suspected steering arm failure. He was soon taken to the garage but returned to action two laps down.
De Pasquale took on four tyres and van Gisbergen three when they pitted on the 12th lap, though De Pasquale’s right rear tyre was significantly delaminated. Reports from his garage said that he had been scheduled to complete another five laps on that set before being forced into a premature stop.
Chaz Mostert overtook Tim Slade, who had stopped early once again, to move into eighth.
Will Brown changed four tyres on lap 16 and emerged just ahead of Shane van Gisbergen, with de Pasquale and Davison ahead of that duo behind Jack le Brocq, the only man to not yet pit by that stage.
Van Gisbergen dove down the inside of Will Davison to take third on lap 20, with Whincup quickly following his teammate past Davison.
Waters was charging up the field, getting past Percat and Heimgartner to get up to P10.
Fabian Coulthard started last after a poor qualifying, but had picked up seven places before breaking a driveshaft and retiring.
Whincup - second in the championship but having a poor weekend - got past teammate van Gisbergen on the second attempt on the penultimate corner on lap 24 to regain his original third-place starting position.
De Pasquale had led by almost 10 seconds, but was forced to manage his tyres as his former teammate at Erebus Motorsport Will Brown cut it down to 1.8 seconds with eight laps remaining.
By lap 27, the lead was less than a second. The pair engaged in a frenzied battle as Brown touched his rival’s rear end on the final corner before pit straight, but Brown’s tyres were diminishing and he eventually fell to defeat by 1.2 seconds.
It still equals his best result since a runner-up at Sandown in 2019 in a co-driver sprint.
an Gisbergen went one better than his Saturday charge from sixth to second, claiming his 12th victory of a dominant Supercars season.
But it took a nightmare start from pole-sitter Anton de Pasquale and a major technical problem from de Pasquale’s Shell V-Power teammate Will Davison to earn van Gisbergen a statement victory, his 52nd of his career.
De Pasquale won Race 20 and topped every qualifying and practice session through the weekend, but had a woeful start to Race 21, dropping five spots on the start as he almost stalled. He lost another spot to fall to seventh on the first lap.
His veteran teammate Davison got away cleanly and took first in his Ford Mustang, while van Gisbergen again surged up the field, claiming three places to move to third. Nick Percat overtook Jamie Whincup but soon lost it back, while Van Gisbergen stormed past Brodie Kostecki into second before the first lap was finished – making it a four-place rise.Will Davison was maintaining the lead despite a number of serious technical issues leaving him with no information on his dashboard and a number of other technical problems – including no pit lane limiter, meaning he manually kept his speed below the 40km/h limit without the benefit of a speedometer.
He was forced to completely restart his central power unit while stopped after lap 15, which gave him gear change lights on his dashboard but no other dashboard instruments.
Shane van Gisbergen jumped him in the pits while taking on three new tyres, while Davison took on four fresh tyres – likely taking the time needed to reboot the car’s electronic systems to put on extra tyres.
He would never recover the position, finishing second behind van Gisbergen.
Davison was heartbroken after losing out on the chance of a first race win since Bathurst in 2016, saying: “It’s gutting. We lost all dash and comms on lap two... No lights, no gear position. We had a blackout in the pit lane... I was just trundling down the pit lane with nothing at all... I’m devastated mate.”
De Pasquale had pitted on just lap eight for two tyres in a desperate attempt to undercut his rivals and hold them off on degrading tyres. He took the lead when van Gisbergen and Davison pitted on the 15th lap, but it wasn’t long before he lost top spot.
Van Gisbergen used his far fresher tyres to overtake De Pasquale on lap 23, with de Pasquale moving aside for the faster Davison immediately afterwards.
Van Gisbergen said: “We had a bit of luck obviously with whatever dramas they had... again, had a pretty fun first lap fighting with those guys.”
He said of his over 300-point championship lead: “We do have a big lead but it’s not done yet. We had to let everybody know that we’re here to win races and not just pick up points.”
Brodie Kostecki locked up on lap 29, losing fourth spot to Nick Percat. Percat continued charging upwards, overtaking the struggling de Pasquale into third down the inside on the run to turn six.
De Pasquale was barely holding on with his ageing tyres, with Brodie Kostecki getting past on lap 31 – the penultimate lap – to move to fourth, just one spot off his second podium in as many days.
De Pasquale was forthright in his analysis of the race: “Ballsed up the start and that’s about all she wrote.”
Meanwhile van Gisbergen’s Red Bull Ampol Racing teammate Jamie Whincup had started fourth, two higher than his teammate, but couldn’t make moves in the race. He finished seventh.
And de Pasquale was later found to have accidentally used one of Davison’s tyres during the race, meaning his points for finishing in fifth were later scrubbed out and the team fined. He said: “I don’t worry about it. It is what it is. You can’t change things like that.”
Whincup was promoted to sixth after de Pasquale’s disqualification over the tyre mishap.
SUNDAY QUALI REPORT
Despite conditions changing constantly throughout the weekend, de Pasquale was again fastest in the two sudden-death qualifying sessions, with no Top 10 shootouts on offer.
In the first, he notched his sixth pole for the season with a sizzling 1:28.298s – also claiming the biggest margin ever between first and second on the track with a gap of 0.656s to teammate Will Davison.
He said: “It’s always interesting to come off a race where you’re trying to conserve tyres (to go into qualifying).”
De Pasquale spoke of the team’s hard work during the three-month hiatus, saying: “The crew’s been working really hard. Been trying to do the best I can (at the workshop). It’s been a long break, but we’ve not been sitting still.”
“Just happy to be sitting in the car. Having an awesome time.”
Brodie Kostecki was third ahead of Jamie Whincup, who got one back on his title rival and teammate Shane van Gisbergen who was only sixth behind Nick Percat. Andre Heimgartner, Chaz Mostert, Will Brown, and Tim Slade rounded out the Top 10 for Race 21.
For Race 22, de Pasquale did it again with a 1:28.308s, this time with a margin of 0.392s.
Will Brown backed up his second-place qualifying for Saturday’s Race 20 with another second, ahead of Whincup and Van Gisbergen.
Brodie Kostecki, Davison, Mark Winterbottom, Todd Hazelwood, Percat and Mostert rounded out the Top 10 for Race 22.
