Bathurst 12 Hour: van Gisbergen's Tekno McLaren beats Nissan to win
Shane van Gisbergen delivered Tekno McLaren co-drivers Alvaro Parente and Jonathon Webb the biggest win of their GT careers in the Bathurst 12 Hour
The V8 Supercars frontrunner tore apart the field in his opening stint, set a new lap record and then headed back to the hotel for a nap.
Refreshed, he returned to the track hours later - and as soon as he got in the car, nearly lost the race by incurring a drive-through penalty for speeding on his way out of the pits.
Dropping to third was a problem, until the 1m40s gap was erased by a safety car, allowing van Gisbergen an easy pitstop for fuel and letting Tekno back to the front when the opposition stopped.
"The car was the fastest all weekend," van Gisbergen said.
"We had them covered. Any time I needed a gap, I just stuck the knife in!"
The winning team's run was not quite trouble free. Parente had the car die on him, losing 40 seconds mid-race before he reset the system.
Second was a great result for Nissan. Defending champions Katsumasa Chiyo and Florian Strauss watched as fresh co-driver Rick Kelly waited, then charged in the darkness, putting a nightmare qualifying session behind them by flying from 13th to third.
Thereafter the sole GTR was in contention for the rest of the event, Chiyo falling cruelly short by 1.3s after a late-race charge.
Third was some reward for Bentley, if short of what it wanted.
Both Continentals led the race, but both also suffered tyre problems. The worst struck Maxime Soulet, who had a front tyre explode at speed - and then the replacement as well, a lap later. Suspension damage dropped the car to seventh.
Steven Kane, Guy Smith and Matt Bell righted the ship, despite tyre problems of their own, with third, some consolation for being bumped out of that position - at the final corner of the race - last year.
Laurens Vanthoor put an interesting mid-race TV outburst about the uncompetitiveness of Audi's R8 LMS behind him with fourth place, sharing the Phoenix Racing entry with Marcus Winkelhock and Alex Davison. The Nurburgring and Daytona winning machine lacked straightline speed at Bathurst.
Mercedes-Benz's SLS is long in the tooth and it showed. Both Erebus Motorsport cars had trouble, including a falling pit boom and broken passenger door, but a tyre failure accounted for the Bernd Schneider/Marco Bastian/Austin Centric entry.
The sister entry lost a lap and never got it back, David Reynolds taking fifth, sharing with Thomas Jager and Nico Bastian.
Nathan Antunes, Bart Mawer and Greg Taylor took sixth and first in the AA class.
Steven Grove dominated Class B, sharing his Porsche with Scott McLaughlin and Le Mans winner Earl Bamber, while the Jake Camilleri/Morgan Haber/Aaron Seton MARC Cars Ford Focus V8 won the Invitational Class I.
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