Winton Supersprint, Saturday, May 19

May 19, 2018

Fabian Coulthard - No. 12 Shell V-Power Racing Ford

Practice – Second (Fastest Lap: 1m19.6696s)
Qualifying – Second (Fastest Lap: 1m19.2419s)
Race 13 – Fourth (Fastest Lap: 1m20.7755s)
 
Scott McLaughlin - No. 17 Shell V-Power Racing Ford

Practice – First (Fastest Lap: 1m19.4601s)
Qualifying – First (Fastest Lap: 1m19.1136s)
Race 13 – Fifth (Fastest Lap: 1m19.7651s)

RECAP: After topping the timesheets in final practice and qualifying side-by-side in a front row lockout, Race 13 of the Championship started strongly for Shell V-Power Racing. Scott McLaughlin got off the start well, leading the field into turn one. Coulthard had a slow start, falling back into fourth place behind the Nissans of Caruso and Kelly for the opening stint of the race. McLaughlin took his first stop on lap seven, rejoining the race as the first of those who'd stopped and the effective race leader. Coulthard took service one lap later, slotting in two positions behind McLaughlin in a net third place. With over 30 laps of racing left to the flag, both drivers were coached by their engineers to look after their tyres, trying to ensure they had something in reserve should they need it later in the race. Other cars ran long first stints, looking for a tyre gain late in the race. McLaughlin and Coulthard continued to race well, keeping the cars straight to look after their Super Soft rubber. Unfortunately a late race Safety Car negated the six-second gap that McLaughlin had built in the lead of the race, with Coulthard pushed into fourth place by those on fresher tyres. The post SC restart saw McLaughlin head into turn one with too little heat in his tyres, run wide and then be pushed into the dirt – dropping from first to fifth as a result, right behind Coulthard. They then ran to the flag nose-to-tail, with Fabian fourth and Scott fifth. Shell V-Power Racing now leads the Teams' title by 36 points over Triple Eight. Scott has maintained his Championship lead, now 140 points over Shane van Gisbergen. Fabian has jumped into eighth place. Tomorrow will see a 20-minute qualifying session, with a 200km race in the afternoon.
 
COULTHARD QUOTE: "I got a really poor start, and that sort of set my race up from there. We had really good race pace, we were able to set consistently good lap times, but that safety car really didn't help Scott or I. Being able to finish fourth still meant we pulled good Teams' points, and we'll come back stronger tomorrow."

MCLAUGHLIN QUOTE: "That little error at the end there cost us. I just didn't have enough temperature in the surface of the tyre at the restart, so the win got away from us. That was unfortunate, but we still took a big bag of points and the positive is that we now lead the Teams' Championship for the first time this year. We've got a fast car, and we'll bounce back tomorrow."