Shane van Gisbergen won the second race of the weekend at Albert Park, while Chaz Mostert and James Courtney had a last-lap battle for the final spot on the podium.
The majority of the feild started on soft tyres after the issues with them in yesterday’s race, planning a short run to the pit stop and a long run to the end of the race on hard tyres.
Scott Pye was the furthest car up the grid in 12th to start on the hard tyres planning to run long into the race before switching to the soft tyres. Mark Winterbottom, Bryce Fullwood, Macaulay Jones, Jack Smith, Tim Slade and Thomas Randle joined Pye on the hard tyre strategy.
Davison took the lead into Turn 1 as the rest of the field ran two-wide through the first few corners
Van Gisbergen closed onto the back of Davison by lap two, looking for a gap to make the pass, which he would complete at Turn 6 to take the lead of the race.
The first of the leaders, Brodie Kostecki and David Reynolds, made their stop on lap 4.
Soon after, Heimgartner was spun into the fence after contact with Will Brown near the entry to pit lane bringing out the first safety car. The remainder of the field who still needed to pit made their stop under the safety car conditions.
With much of the field making their first stops, Anton De Pasquale found himself stacked behind Davison, dropping him back in the pack, however, the situation got worse, as he was unable to pull out of his pit bay around Triple Eight who were still serving Feeney’s car, De Pasquale would then stall the car momentarily before getting back moving.
Many of the cars that put soft tyres on then came back in while the field was still under the control of the SC to put the hard tyres back on having met the requirement to put them on.
The race went back to green on lap 8 with SVG at the head of the field.
The restart lap was action-packed with Feeney finding himself off track while Brodie Kostecki dropped back in the pack after attempting to pass Davison, running wide in the process, losing his momentum allowing others by.
Waters made contact with Davison sending him into the gravel trap, Davison was unable to get the Shell V-Power entry moving bringing out the second yellow flag of the race.
While that was happening Will Brown received a penalty for the earlier contact with Heimgartner. Waters also received a penalty for the contact with Davison.
On the second restart of the race SVG one again quickly built a lead over Reynolds who sat second.
Courtney was sitting in third on the final lap, with Mostert behind putting pressure on the Tickford driver.
Mostert looked for a gap to make the move, Courtney pushed him wide at the second last corner, before Mostert continued the battle at the final corner making contact that would see Courtney in the fence, dropping back to ninth. Mostert would receive a post-race pit lane penalty for the incident, dropping him back to 22nd in the results.
As a result of the incident Grove racing would get their first double podium will Reynolds in second and Lee Holdsworth third, while SVG took the race win.
Chris Pither avoided the drama to finish 17th, while Heimgartner didn’t make it back on track after his incident.
The Supercar will be back out on track for the third race of the weekend at 4.20 pm this afternoon.
Image: Red Bull Racing social media
