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The Supercars championship continued across the weekend, with the tour heading back up the Bass Strait from Tasmania to one of the fastest circuits in the country on Phillip Island.
In a weekend of milestones and dramas, Mark Winterbottom and Brad Jones Racing celebrated their 200th and 250th respective round starts, while a brain-fade in the Triple Eight camp saw Jamie Whincup haemorrhage crucial championship points.
Following another two enthralling 250km races at the legendary Grand Prix Circuit, here are the major talking points from the Phillip Island 500 weekend.
McLaughlin is King of the Island
It was a perfect weekend for Scott McLaughlin, having claimed back-to-back victories at Phillip Island from consecutive pole positions and asserted himself at the top of the championship standings.
Having had to fight through both races to claim the wins, losing position during the pit-stops to Jamie Whincup on Saturday and then the duo of Rick Kelly and David Reynolds on Sunday, the young Kiwi showed his genius and the speed of the Shell V-Power Fords.
Taking a 60-point lead in the standings with him to the next round in Perth, McLaughlin has achieved a sixth win of his career at Phillip Island, out of the 18 victories he’s had in his short career.
What was telling was that the soon-to-be-replaced Falcon FG X is still a very quick car and the DJR Team Penske engineers were able to hit the sweet spot this weekend, making it almost half a second faster than the leading Holdens at one point.
Double podium for Kelly and Nissan
Rick Kelly made his 500th race in the Supercars category one to remember, having claimed a podium finish not only on Saturday during his milestone race, but also on Sunday.
Race 9 saw the 2006-series champion elevated into second, after a post-race penalty applied to Whincup who had stood on the podium. The following race saw Kelly assume the lead of the race in the middle stint, having gambled on taking a shorter splash of fuel in the first stop.
That failed to pay dividends, as ultimately it was McLaughlin fighting with David Reynolds for the lead. However, it was a big win for the Nissan outfit, having claimed back-to-back podiums at the most aero-sensitive circuit on the calendar, indicating progress for the Altima.
This was the first time that the 35-year-old has had multiple podiums at an event since 2009, while Homebush 2015 was the last time that Kelly had stood on the podium itself.
Costly weekend for Whincup
As alluded to above, the reigning champion had his podium in Race 9 stripped from he and the Red Bull Holden Racing Team, following a pit-lane blunder during one of his stops.
A 38-second time penalty, equivalent to a drive-through, was handed down to Whincup for turning off his pit-lane limiter before the designated cone at the end of pit-exit. That saw the Holden driver drop down to fourteenth and concede the championship lead.
Race 10 saw an anonymous outing for the #1 car, having started fifth in the race and ended it down in ninth, with all the Triple Eight Commodores struggling across the weekend.
Having been championship leader coming into the weekend, Whincup has plummeted to fifth in the standings and is 142-points in arrears of McLaughlin, off the back of a perfect weekend for the Ford outfit.
(AAP Image/Edge Photographics)
Reynolds the leading Holden
In what has been hailed as his best start to a Supercars championship season, David Reynolds has been a benchmark for consistency and that is telling through his second position in the standings.
The Erebus Holden driver stood on the podium on Sunday, having battled with McLaughlin for the race win, but was out-driven by the new King of the Island.
What will be a positive for Reynolds and Erebus from the Phillip Island weekend was that they were the leading Holden team, as Triple Eight lacked speed and suffered from their own mistakes on one of the most demanding circuits on the calendar.
Four rounds in and having visited a variety of circuits, it is now evident that the ‘dark horse’ tag for Erebus and Reynolds is a valid one, following their string of results.
Sixty points behind McLaughlin in the championship, keeping up the consistency will be key for the Erebus team to be in contention come the end of the year.
Tickford still a way off
With DJR Team Penske having established their Falcon FG Xs ahead of the Commodores at Phillip Island, it was another weekend to forget for the four-car Ford operation of Tickford.
Tickford still seem a way off the leading competitors and with the Shell V-Power Fords having found strong speed, it is evident that its an issue with the way Tickford are setting up their cars – as supposed to the Falcon not being fast enough in comparison with the ZB Commodore.
Chaz Mostert was once again the leading car, finishing fifth and eighth across the two races and showing that his Supercheap Auto Racing car has better race pace than it has qualifying speed.
Despite a top-ten start in the second race, milestone man Winterbottom dropped down to 15th, with the 2015 champion’s struggles continuing in what is a key season for him, chasing a new contract for next season and beyond.
Though with no podium to either of their names in 2018, the Tickford quartet are once again looking as if they’ll be out of contention for the title, while their fellow Ford outfit in DJR Team Penske fight at the front.
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