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Time for DJR Team Penske to shine

Supercars retro round is about more than just liveries. (Photo: POLESTAR Volvo)
Expert
29th March, 2017
2

It might have been a non-championship round at Albert Park, but DJR Team Penske have finally got the wheels turning, picking up the first, second and third race wins in the Supercars category.

Fabian Coulthard and Scott McLaughlin finally found the pace required to bring Roger Penske his first win in Australia’s top flight racing series after two years and a round of trying.

Given the impressive start McLaughlin and Coulthard made at the Clipsal 500, it felt like their first win was only going to be a matter of time, but not many pundits were predicting it would come so soon and in such a dominant fashion as it did at Albert Park.

Winning three out of the four races for the weekend across the team was a remarkable effort, but to be fair they had the pace all weekend – particularly in the case of Coulthard who started the first three races from pole position.

After Adelaide, where reigning champion Shane Van Gisbergen dominated it was hard to see anyone knocking Triple Eight off their perch at the top of affairs in Melbourne, but DJR rose up and did exactly that.

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The practice session on Thursday set the wheels in motion for the rest of the weekend with Coulthard emerging as the fastest. While McLaughlin didn’t find the pace to do anything of note in the first session of the weekend, the data from Coulthard’s car clearly helped him as he came back to get quicker with every session.

McLaughlin ended up taking out the first race despite his teammate being on pole, before Coulthard converted in Race 2 and 3.

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Even in the first race, Coulthard was incredibly strong as the Kiwi drove around to finish runner-up and less than half a second behind McLaughlin who had also qualified on the front row of the grid.

Despite Prodrive’s Chaz Mostert blocking a complete sweep of the weekend by taking the final race, with McLaughlin and Coulthard both finishing outside the top ten, there were no questions to be asked about who the dominant team was across the weekend at Albert Park.

The big question that does remain though is all about whether Penske can keep it all going over the upcoming sprint rounds.

While the Clipsal 500 is a good form guide for the season ahead, it’s a completely different race to everything we will have between then and the endurance season, with a whole bunch of sprint rounds coming up.

They start in a fortnight at Symmons Plains in Tasmania, a track where Triple Eight have often dominated. Given their form in Adelaide, you would expect Van Gisbergen to be somewhere back at the top of the field, even if Jamie Whincup continues to struggle.

While we expect consistency and dominance from Triple Eight, and have major questions over veterans Mark Winterbottom and Craig Lowndes, who are both struggling big time, there is a serious air of unpredictability about DJR as we light the championship back up.

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Even though they won three races at Albert Park, you have to remember it was a non-championship round, and just how hard everyone else was pushing? Well, it’s anyone’s guess really. A couple of crashes and wrecked cars would say everyone was there to win, but with nothing seriously on the line, it’s hard to justify that being the case right through the field.

What we do know about Albert Park is for the last two years it has been crucial in deciding the championship. Mark Winterbottom won in 2015, Shane Van Gisbergen in 2016 and both went on to win the whole thing.

Coulthard took out the event overall and while I’m not going to sit here and suggest he will win the championship, statistics and form in sprint races are powerful things as we move into the next stage of the season.

Funnily enough, McLaughlin is probably a better bet to take out the whole thing, but racing for the same team they will share data and ultimately look to be the two quickest cars in the field.

While Van Gisbergen, Whincup and Triple Eight are still the ones to beat, Symmons Plains is going to tell us plenty about DJR Team Penske and where they might finish in 2017.

If they have a second strong performance and pick up another race win – well just watch this space.

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