Shane van Gisbergen has extended his Repco Supercars Championship lead after netting another impressive haul of points in this weekend’s Penrite Oil Sandown Supersprint.
 
The championship leader entered the Victorian round with a healthy buffer of more than 300 points over Anton De Pasquale, but two wins and a runner-up finish saw him end the weekend with a lead of 500.
 
Having picked up a clean sweep of wins during last year’s visit to Sandown International Raceway, van Gisbergen would have hoped to replicate those same results in this year’s three races.
 
However, De Pasquale’s teammate Will Davison stood up as the biggest challenger, edging him in Saturday’s qualifying session.
 
In what turned out to be a dominant performance, Davison went on to convert his pole position into the win – his second win for the 2022 season – beating van Gisbergen by eight seconds.
 
While van Gisbergen was no match for Davison, the reigning champion still added points to his lead after he prevented a Dick Johnson Racing one-two, edging out title rival De Pasquale for second by just seven tenths.
 
“It’s just a dream run, I was pushing hard, and I’m feeling really good.” Davison said post-race.
 
 “Huge shoutout to Rich [Harris, engineer], everyone at Shell V-Power Racing.
 
“It’s a great way to kick off the new era.”

Both van Gisbergen and Davison were the stars of Sunday’s two qualifying sessions, grabbing a pole position each, but it was the former who enjoyed dominant victory for the second race of the event.
 
Like Davison did on Saturday, van Gisbergen led from lights out to the chequered flag, taking out victory by seven and a half seconds, only this time it was a Chaz Mostert who reached the finish line next,
 
Mostert battled hard in the early stages of the outing, but couldn’t keep up with van Gisbergen, who ended up skipping away not long after the opening laps and picked up his 69th career Supercars win.
 
Erebus Motorsport’s Will Brown rounded out the podium, making it a forgettable outing for Shell V Power Race Team, with De Pasquale finishing eighth and Davison 15th as a result of a penalty.
 
“The car was really good, so much better than yesterday,” van Gisbergen said post victory.

In the final race of the weekend, it was Davison and van Gisbergen who were again battling for the win, but it was the latter who took out top honours after snatching the lead three laps in.
 
It was a fantastic battle between the two and after van Gisbergen took the lead, he was able to defend for the rest of the race to cross the finish line just four tenths ahead of the Ford Mustang pilot.
 
The Kiwi ended up pitting first of the two on lap 18 with Davison coming into the pits five laps later, but van Gisbergen managed to keep his lead in tact.
 
Despite having fresher tyres, Davison couldn’t catch the leader as van Gisbergen ended up taking out the win, while Triple Eight Race Engineering teammate Broc Feeney picked up his second podium for the year – his first since the Tasmania SuperSprint in March – after passing Mostert late in the outing.
 
Click here for full results.
 
On the championship standings, van Gisbergen now holds a 500 point lead over the second placed Cameron Waters, while Will Davison’s productive weekend saw him jump teammate Anton De Pasquale to third – with just 22 points separating the trio in a tight battle for the minor placings.
 
The Repco Supercars Championship now heads overseas to New Zealand with the ITM Auckland SuperSprint to take place at Pukekohe Park Raceway on 10-11 September.