Will Davison has come home to claim race victory in this evening Race 27 at Pukekohe, holding off a charging Andre Heimgartner and Cam Waters over the dying stages. It was a great result for the Kiwi Heimgartner, with second place being the best result in New Zealand in a Supercar.
Waters challenged Heimgartner over the closing stages of the event, but the 27-year-old held on to take second with Waters having to settle for third.
Chaz Mostert held on to a clean fourth-placed finish, ahead of championship leader Shane van Gisbergen who managed to work his way up from fifth.
Starting from second on the grid, Davison got the better of Waters, as did third placed starter de Pasquale, a poor start from the Tickford driver take a 1-2 lead come the end of Lap 1.
It was a relatively drama-free start to the event, however mid-pack heading 4-wide into the first turn hurt Time Slade, with James Courtney sending him sideways through Turn 2. Somehow, Slade recovered to keep it facing the right direction, albeit with damage to the car seeing him retire.
A stop on Lap 6 for Jake Kostecki went awry with a left rear wheel coming off at Pit Exit. It was strange scenes as the team managed to reapply to wheel, outside to box, and saw him return to the track multiple laps down.
Heimgartner had worked his way to fourth by Lap 8 and began to apply pressure to Waters ahead. Up front, Davison continued to pull away and built a gap of 3 seconds to de Pasquale.
The second-placed Shell V-Power driver, de Pasquale, came in for a stop on Lap 17, overshooting the box and costing the team multiple valuable seconds. Heimgartner, Waters and Mostert all came in the following lap, with a quick stop for the Kiwi seeing him shoot up the standings to sit net second, behind Davison.
Davison came for his stop a lap later, emerging with the race lead comfortably ahead of Heimgartner.
As per usual, Shane van Gisbergen remained out front for many more laps before making his stop on Lap 25 to return to the track 11th with four cars ahead yet to stop. Remaining in clear air didn’t benefit the championship leader, as per previous occasions this season.
A safety car on Lap 29 brought the field back to Davison, Maculey Jones the unfortunate victim after making contact with James Golding and being forced to stop his car at the exit of the hairpin.
The restart saw some close battles between the pack, with the front four maintaining their positions to see Davison claim the win over Heimgartner and Waters respectively, with Mostert clinching fourth and van Gisbergen managing a great overtake on de Pasquale to take third.
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