Chaz Mostert won the first race of the weekend at Albert Park, as Shane van Gisbergen climbed from 23rd to third.
David Reynolds led the field away from the grid with Mostert falling into second, Nick Percat third Anton De Pasquale fourth, and Macaulay Jones fifth.
Van Gisbergen climbed up to 16th by the end of the opening lap, continuing to move forward in the following laps.
The battle for the lead of the race began heating up on lap 2 as Mostert began closing the gap to Reynolds, before starting to look for somewhere to attempt a pass, he soon found an opportunity and took the lead.
Through the pit stop sequence, Mostert lost the lead of the race as the two Shell V-Power cars of Will Davison and De Pasquale were able to undercut, taking their stop earlier and putting on the soft tyres.
The gap would eventually swing back in Mostert’s favour as both cars began to struggle with their tyres.
Tyres became a significant issue throughout the race with many cars struggling with tyre damage, some teams who had hoped to run to the end of the race on soft tyres were forced to make a second pit stop.
Mostert would get past both Shell V-Power cars as they struggled with tyres to regain the lead of the race.
Late in the race, De Pasquale would lose one of his tyres entering turn 1 sending him through the gravel trap, he got the car back to the pit lane, for fresh tyres though it dropped him to the back of the field.
As De Pasquale made his way back to the pit lane, the team brought Davison who was also struggling with tyres into the lane for a new set of tyres.
Through the back half of the race van Gisbergen continued to climb through the field, ultimately crossing the line third.
Andre Heimgartner had a clean race finishing 15th after starting 18th on the grid.
Chris Pither had a tough race, being wheeled into the garage late in the race, though he would make it back out on track to finish the race though he was four laps down.
The field will be back on track for the second race of the weekend at 12.25 pm Saturday.
Main image: Walkinshaw Andretti United social media
