Incident packed Ipswich 400 for Volvo Polestar Racing
Scott McLaughlin secured his fifth pole position of the 2014 V8 Supercars for Volvo Polestar Racing at Queensland Raceway and claimed his fifth podium in the first race.
“We had a pretty up and down weekend. It was awesome to take my fifth pole of the year and third in the first race. The top two got away from me though, but we made changes throughout the weekend that worked well,” said McLaughlin.
The second race saw the Kiwi starting from pole position and leading the race until a clash with Nissan driver Michael Caruso, an incident resulting in many places lost for McLaughlin and a penalty for Caruso.
“I was battling with my friend Michael Caruso. Unfortunately he tagged me and spun me around. That was the end of my race as I had to do a few flick spins to get it back and that chewed up my tyres. It is just one of those things and Michael came after the race and said sorry,” said McLaughlin.
Team-mate Robert Dahlgren had a mixed weekend as well with technical problems in the final qualifying session, but equalled his best V8 Supercars result so far with 16th in the final race.
“We did a few changes for the final race after I had problems with my car in qualifying. I had good pace and went up from 22nd to 16th, it was just unfortunate to qualify that far back. But at least we had good speed in the races,” said Dahlgren.
The final race of the weekend saw McLaughlin battling in the top five, but an unscheduled pitstop for a punctured front left tyre sent him back to 19th position.
“Unfortunately I don’t know what happened, I am pretty sure something went wrong as the car just locked up and I was a passenger. It was unfortunate as the car felt the best it had done over a Sunday for a long time and we had pretty good tyre life. I am still seventh in the championship though which is not too bad, we need to just keep pushing on,” said McLaughlin.
V8 Supercars continues on August 22-24 with the Sydney Motorsport Park 400, the final SuperSprint format race before the Endurance Cup starts with the Wilson Security Sandown 500 on September 14.
“Incidents stopped the team unfortunately from getting better results than there was pace for this weekend. Scott and Robert fought well though as usual and there is nothing but keeping our heads down and continue to work hard for the coming races in Sydney,” said Christian Dahl, owner of Polestar.
Results Race 23 – Top 5
1 Jamie Whincup Holden Commodore 33 laps
2 Craig Lowndes Holden Commodore +4.6356
3 Scott McLaughlin Volvo S60 +7.9625
4 Fabian Coulthard Holden Commodore +12.2176
5 James Courtney Holden Commodore +14.9171
23 Robert Dahlgren Volvo S60 +39.9072
Results Race 24 – Top 5
1 Jamie Whincup Holden Commodore 33 laps
2 Craig Lowndes Holden Commodore +0.5082
3 Chaz Mostert Ford Falcon +12.2514
4 Shane van Gisbergen Holden Commodore +18.1787
5 Rick Kelly Nissan Altima +20.1221
19 Scott McLaughlin Volvo S60 +31.8068
22 Robert Dahlgren Volvo S60 +34.1866
Results Race 25 – Top 5
1 James Courtney Holden Commodore 66 laps
2 Craig Lowndes Holden Commodore +5.5847
3 Chaz Mostert Ford Falcon +7.9592
4 Scott Pye Ford Falcon +11.9481
5 James Moffat Nissan Altima +14.3465
16 Robert Dahlgren Volvo S60 +43.0796
19 Scott McLaughlin Volvo S60 +46.5478
Qualifying Race 23 – Top 5
1 Craig Lowndes Holden Commodore 1:09.4221
2 Jamie Whincup Holden Commodore +0.0456
3 Scott McLaughlin Volvo S60 +0.0527
4 Fabian Coulthard Holden Commodore +0.1182
5 James Courtney Holden Commodore +0.1215
20 Robert Dahlgren Volvo S60 +0.5102
Qualifying Race 24 – Top 5
1 Scott McLaughlin Volvo S60 1:09.2906
2 Michael Caruso Nissan Altima +0.0409
3 Jamie Whincup Holden Commodore +0.0695
4 Craig Lowndes Holden Commodore +0.0784
5 Shane van Gisbergen Holden Commodore +0.1477
18 Robert Dahlgren Volvo S60 +0.4247
Qualifying Race 25 – Top 5
1 James Moffat Nissan Altima 1:09.1539
2 James Courtney Holden Commodore +0.1821
3 Scott McLaughlin Volvo S60 +0.2071
4 Nick Percat Holden Commodore +0.2454
5 Jamie Whincup Holden Commodore +0.2741
22 Robert Dahlgren Volvo S60 +0.9769
Championship positions – Top 10 (25/38 races)
1 Jamie Whincup Holden Commodore 1790 points
2 Mark Winterbottom Ford Falcon 1775 (-15)
3 Craig Lowndes Holden Commodore 1628 (-162)
4 James Courtney Holden Commodore 1598 (-192)
5 Fabian Coulthard Holden Commodore 1535 (-255)
6 Shane Van Gisbergen Holden Commodore 1532 (-258)
7 Scott McLaughlin Volvo S60 1347 (-443)
8 Chaz Mostert Ford Falcon 1322 (-468)
9 Garth Tander Holden Commodore 1309 (-481)
10 David Reynolds Ford Falcon 1201 (-589)
…
25 Robert Dahlgren Volvo S60 531 (-1259)
Category: Racing
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