Anton De Pasquale secured his first round win in the BP Supercars All Stars Eseries after putting in a consistent performance throughout the night’s three races.
The Erebus Motorsport driver had two top five finishes and capped the night off with a tight win over series rival Shane van Gisbergen to claim his first series round triumph.
It was a rocky end to the round though after he and van Gisbergen made contact on one of the last corners, however the Kiwi made amends to give him back the lead and De Pasquale was thrilled to come out on top.
“Me and Shane have been nose and tail for a couple of weeks now and it’s been really good,” De Pasquale said.
“Whoever starts in front and leads at turn one kind of wins the race, so it was good to start from pole in the final one. That last moment was a bit scary. He came up at me and had a dive and we obviously collided. I think he knew he had made a mistake when he took me out and we had time to fix it.
“It’s good to win. We have been short for a couple of weeks now and just missed out but it’s good to win some money for the Feel the Magic charity. I am happy and proud to donate some money to them.”
In the race’s battle for final podium spot, series leader Scott McLaughlin recovered from a difficult start to edge past Cam Waters and grab third – leaving Waters to finish fourth ahead of Australian IndyCar star Will Power.
It was an uneventful start to the round compared to the final race as van Gisbergen led the field from lights to flag, cruising to his sixth victory of the series.
The roles were reversed in the opening race as De Pasquale finished where he started in second place behind van Gisbergen, despite trying to pull off an undercut. However, he still managed to comfortably pick up a good haul of points after finishing ahead of McLaughlin.
Rounding out the top five was Power and Lee Holdsworth with the duo switching places a few times throughout the race, but Power eventually prevailed and ended the race in fourth.
A chaotic start to the second race saw Todd Hazelwood grab the early lead after starting from the second row thanks to the reverse grid format.
Not long into the race though, the Brad Jones Racing driver had a battle on his hands with Formula 1 driver Lando Norris applying close pressure and vying for the lead.
As Hazelwood tried to defend his place against the McLaren star, it was no use as Norris showed his class and eventually took the lead, holding onto it for the remaining laps to win his first series race after debuting last week.
As Norris claimed the reverse-grid race, Hazelwood relinquished one more position to Waters but still did enough to secure his first podium for the series - two seconds ahead of De Pasquale, who had done enough to earn pole position for the final race.
It was also another good run for van Gisbergen who climbed from last to seventh to finish just behind 2019 Dunlop Super2 Series winner Bryce Fulwood.