Eastern Creek V8 Supercars: Shane van Gisbergen dominates in wet

Tekno Holden driver van Gisbergen made a charging start from sixth to third at the lights to put him on the gearboxes of poleman Jamie Whincup and Scott McLaughlin.

Poor visibility from the first-lap spray resulted in contact between Tim Slade and James Moffat in the middle of the pack, which turned Slade around and left him a sitting duck for David Reynolds to plough into at Turn 3 (pictured below).

The shunt ended the race for both drivers, and brought the safety car out for the first time in the race.

On the restart van Gisbergen immediately made it one up on the podium to second, passing McLaughlin with ease before careering past Whincup for the lead at Turn 6 - seemingly having the grip that others were desperately searching for when the championship leader ran wide.

Van Gisbergen then consistently set fastest laps to the end to take his second win of the season.

Whincup could only fall back down the field, first seeing McLaughlin sail past - although the Volvo would subsequently retire - then being hounded by Triple Eight Holden team-mate Craig Lowndes for a number of laps before losing out to both Lowndes and Garth Tander.

Indeed, Tander made superb progress to move up from his 14th place starting position to pass Lowndes and finish second.

Lowndes held off Whincup for third, with Michael Caruso in fifth ahead of Rick Kelly.

Will Davison had to work hard to claim seventh after a race long duel first with Nick Percat, and then James Courtney who finished eighth.

Jason Bright and Scott Pye rounded out the top 10 on the road, but Pye was later given a penalty for an incident with Percat.

Championship challenger Mark Winterbottom had a race to forget, running three seconds off the pace of the charging van Gisbergen.

He was the first to dive into the pits for another set of wet tyres to help him perform more competitive laptimes, which eventually saw his recovery drive finish in 11th after Pye's penalty.

Results - 25 laps:

Pos  Driver               Team/Car                  Time/Gap
 1.  Shane van Gisbergen  Tekno Holden           47m54.8944s
 2.  Garth Tander         HRT Holden                +9.1565s
 3.  Craig Lowndes        Triple Eight Holden      +16.7233s
 4.  Jamie Whincup        Triple Eight Holden      +20.4712s
 5.  Michael Caruso       Nissan                   +20.7873s
 6.  Rick Kelly           Nissan                   +21.9875s
 7.  Will Davison         Erebus Mercedes          +22.2081s
 8.  James Courtney       HRT Holden               +23.8344s
 9.  Jason Bright         Brad Jones Holden        +25.1749s
10.  Lee Holdsworth       Erebus Mercedes          +33.0974s
11.  Mark Winterbottom    FPR Ford                 +35.8268s
12.  James Moffat         Nissan                   +35.8519s
13.  Chaz Mostert         FPR Ford                 +36.7295s
14.  Russell Ingall       Dumbrell Holden          +37.1051s
15.  Jack Perkins         Schwerkolt/FPR Ford      +37.3019s
16.  Nick Percat          Walkinshaw/HRT Holden    +38.6013s
17.  Dale Wood            Britek/BJR Holden        +38.8581s
18.  David Wall           Dick Johnson Ford        +39.3558s
19.  Robert Dahlgren      GRM Volvo                +39.5558s
20.  Scott Pye            Dick Johnson Ford      +1m03.0877s

Retirements:

     Fabian Coulthard     Brad Jones Holden          16 laps
     Todd Kelly           Nissan                     16 laps
     Scott McLaughlin     GRM Volvo                  11 laps
     Tim Slade            Rosenberg/HRT Holden         1 lap
     David Reynolds       Rod Nash/FPR Ford            1 lap