Triple Eight Race Engineering made a perfect start to its 250^th Repco Supercars Championship round, with Shane van Gisbergen claiming maximum points ahead of teammate Jamie Whincup in the opening race of the ARMOR ALL Sydney SuperNight.

The win sees van Gisbergen further extend his Championship lead, as the New Zealander draws ever closer to another impressive Championship win.

Earlier in the day, Erebus Motorsport’s Will Brown claimed his maiden pole position for Saturday’s solitary race, and while the young gun led the Triple Eight pair off the line and impressed in the opening laps, another disastrous pit stop saw Brown fall down the order and out of contention.

In what was the closest battle of the night, Dick Johnson Racing’s Will Davison rounded out the podium in third, doing enough to hold Brad Jones Racing’s Nick Percat at bay for the majority of the race. The pair exchanged paint in their tense battle, but ultimately the Ford Mustang pilot did enough to cross the line behind the Triple Eight pair and landed a spot on the podium.

Davison’s teammate, Anton De Pasquale dominated both practice sessions earlier in the day posting quick times nobody could match, but he was unable to capitalise on his car’s epic pace as technical gremlins saw the number 17 unable to set a qualifying time. That left the Mustang driver at the rear of the grid for Saturday night’s race. Battling through the traffic, De Pasquale managed to fight his way and claim valuable points, ending the race in 12^th behind pole sitter Brown in P11.



For van Gisbergen, the race win was a fitting result on a special weekend for the Red Bull backed team.

“I can’t thank the team enough, they’ve done a great job turning the car around,” van Gisbergen said post-race.

“The history of this team is second to none and I am just stoked to be a part of it.”

Supercars will return to action on Sunday, with a further two qualifying sessions and races beginning in the afternoon.

Qualifying gets underway at 2:30pm AEDT for Race 24 of the season, while the race itself begins at 4:35pm. That hit out will be followed with a Sunday night prime time clash, with lights out for the final event of the weekend at 7:30pm AEDT.