Shane van Gisbergen has won the Beaurepaires Melbourne SuperSprint opener at the Australian Grand Prix. Van Gisbergen started third behind pole-sitter Anton De Pasquale and Brodie Kostecki, and made the pass for the lead on lap 3.
From there, van Gisbergen controlled the race through the stops to take his second victory of the 2023 season.
“My day was anything but straight forward,” commented van Gisbergen. “I made a mistake in the first practice session, and I didn’t know how significant the damage would be until it came back into our garage, but the guys did an amazing job to fix the car.”
The reigning champion suffered a high-speed series of spins at Turn 8 before hitting the concrete twice in the first practice session.
“I was helping pull the car apart and I learnt just how different this car is – there were so many little parts of the car that were just wrecked. We had a couple of good qualifying sessions, and then in the race we were really starting in the unknown.
“After last year’s debacle with the soft tyres, it was surprising that the super soft was such a good tyre – I didn’t think it would be. It was quite interesting how that played out and it was actually a good race tyre.
“I hope we have some great racing over the next three days. Everyone played the safe option today with the super soft tyres, and tomorrow hopefully there will be people with various strategies.
Coca-Cola Chevrolet driver Kostecki led home teammate Will Brown, with Broc Feeney making it a Chevrolet top-four sweep.
“I’m on pole for tomorrow’s race, and obviously the softs are the preferred tyre, but if the safety car comes out then you’re stuffed, but if you start on a hard tyre, the guy in 20th position could pass you within two laps. We have a hard decision to make tomorrow.”
The #97 Red Bull Ampol Racing driver has now crossed the line first in all three races this year, but was disqualified from Race 1 in Newcastle.
Cars will return to the track for the 15-lap Race 3 at 2:55pm local time on Friday.
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