Townsville Supercars: Waters wins action-packed opener

The Tickford Racing star spent the first stint shadowing polesitter Anton De Pasquale, the two Fords separated by around a second.

Water then went for the undercut on lap 15, diving into the pits to take his sole mandatory service. 

De Pasquale responded a lap later and managed to get out just ahead of Waters. But the advantage wasn't quite enough as he waited for his tyres to come up to temperature, Waters charging into the lead at Turn 2.

Once in front there was no stopping Waters, a well-executed second stint yielding a 2.8-second win.

"The old over and under," said Waters of the race-winning move on De Pasquale. "I knew I had to do it then. I'm so pumped. Obviously last week we got smoked, so to bounce back is absolutely unreal."

Jamie Whincup actually finished second on the road, eight-tenths behind Waters, but was classified fifth thanks to a 15-second penalty. That was for speeding in pitlane, Whincup having locked up on the way into the pits while trying to close the gap to Waters. 

The seven-time series champion made good progress in the second stint, passing De Pasquale for second when the Dick Johnson Racing driver made a mistake on lap 31. But there was a three-position drop penalty waiting once he crossed the finish line.

That left De Pasquale in second while Chaz Mostert rounded out the podium.

Tim Slade finished an impressive fourth to mark the Blanchard Racing Team's best result in Supercars.

That was after an imaginary battle with Whincup in the closing stages, Slade doing enough to edge the penalised #88 by seven-tenths.

Shane van Gisbergen finished sixth after an action-packed race.

Starting sixth, the Kiwi was shuffled back to eighth on the opening lap after avoiding a late-braking Brodie Kostecki on the way to the Turn 2 apex. 

He was lucky to avoid Kostecki a second time later in that first lap, van Gisbergen sitting on the outside of Todd Hazelwood as the Brad Jones Racing driver copped a boot full of Erebus Holden and was spat off the road.

On the second lap van Gisbergen got up the inside of Kostecki at the last corner, before trying to run his rival wide on the exit. The pair made wheel-to-wheel contact, Kostecki firing into the wall as van Gisbergen took over sixth spot.

Three laps later van Gisbergen made another aggressive last-corner move to snare fifth from Will Davison, fourth-placed Mostert his next victim seven laps later. But by then he'd already been slapped with a 15-second time penalty for the Kostecki contact, which meant that early headway was all in vain. 

As usual van Gisbergen ran long, stopping on lap 21 and emerging way back in 19th. He then charged his way back to sixth across the second stint.

Finishing a spot behind Whincup means his series lead narrowed slightly to 239 points.

Scott Pye finished seventh ahead of James Courtney, Hazelwood and Will Brown.

Davison was shuffled back to 11th thanks to a slow stop and a front-left tyre that wouldn't come off the car. 

Kostecki, meanwhile, finished 22nd having battled through steering damage from the van Gisbergen contact, and a 15-second penalty of his own for the Hazelwood incident.

The Townsville SuperSprint continues with two more races tomorrow.

Race results:

Cla	#	Driver	Car	Gap
1	6	Cameron Waters	Ford Mustang GT
2	11	Anton De Pasquale	Ford Mustang GT	2.871
3	25	Chaz Mostert	Holden Commodore ZB	4.458
4	3	Tim Slade	Ford Mustang GT	15.157
5	88	Jamie Whincup	Holden Commodore ZB	15.810
6	97	Shane van Gisbergen	Holden Commodore ZB	16.975
7	20	Scott Pye	Holden Commodore ZB	19.729
8	44	James Courtney	Ford Mustang GT	23.021
9	14	Todd Hazelwood	Holden Commodore ZB	27.724
10	9	Will Brown	Holden Commodore ZB	28.986
11	17	Will Davison	Ford Mustang GT	33.905
12	35	Zane Goddard	Holden Commodore ZB	34.771
13	8	Nick Percat	Holden Commodore ZB	39.386
14	5	Jack Le Brocq	Ford Mustang GT	40.098
15	22	Garry Jacobson	Holden Commodore ZB	42.365
16	26	David Reynolds	Ford Mustang GT	45.460
17	34	Jake Kostecki	Holden Commodore ZB	52.845
18	4	Jack Smith	Holden Commodore ZB	54.186
19	7	Andre Heimgartner	Ford Mustang GT	1'15.518
20	18	Mark Winterbottom	Holden Commodore ZB
21	2	Bryce Fullwood	Holden Commodore ZB
22	99	Brodie Kostecki	Holden Commodore ZB
	19	Fabian Coulthard	Holden Commodore ZB
	96	Macauley Jones	Holden Commodore ZB
View full results