LIVE DIARY: SMP

“I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a sense of relief having secured my 100^thSupercars win. It’s an honour to join the likes of my teammate Craig Lowndes with this milestone. Today was a fitting day for the win, the car was ordinary in the first stint but the team dragged me up and we managed to get a fast pit stop at the end there. In terms of looking forward, I’m not trying to tick any particular boxes. I’m just out there for the fun of racing. We like racing hard and going round in circles as quick as we can and getting to the finish line first. The feeling of winning never gets old, it definitely drives me. There are a lot of people who represent the 100 wins and I’m grateful to all of them.”

Shane van Gisbergen – Car #97

“We didn’t have quite as good a car as yesterday so we didn’t have the pace for the top three but we were the best of the rest. I got spun out at the end which wasn’t very good but I only lost one spot so I still managed to bring it home. A big congratulations to Jamie Whincup for winning his 100^th Supercars race, that’s pretty cool. Now we’ll have all of our focus on the start of the endurance season. We’ve got testing in a weeks’ time so it will be great to get my co-driver Alex Premat in the car and up to speed so we can both give it a good crack at Sandown.”

Shane van Gisbergen – Car #97

Practice 3 – 22nd (Fastest Lap: 1:30.9574)
Qualifying Race 1 – Second  (Fastest Lap: 1:29.0806)
Race 1 –  First 

Jamie Whincup – Car #88
Practice 3 –  Ninth (Fastest Lap: 1:30.3102)
Qualifying Race 1 –  Third (Fastest Lap: 1:29.1480)
Race 1 – Second

Shane van Gisbergen – Car #97

“The first stint was quite good, we managed to get to the front but then it got pretty variable from there. After the pit stop we covered the lead, we pushed hard and kept moving forward to hang onto the lead. After Jamie (Whincup) pitted he came out fourth and gained on me quickly. I knew I had to be strong and managed it from there really. Awesome battle, really intense, but it was even better for the team to have a one-two again. The car has a few things we need to tune, but we are out front, so those things are minimal.”

Jamie Whincup – Car #88

“Ultimately the whole day came down to track position. We qualified behind car #97, and everyone had great pace. As far as my car went it really was good, we had great pace and the whole crew performed seamlessly and really maximised the performance. At the end of the day, we fought hard and I really enjoyed the battle. Shane (Van Gisbergen) ran wide at turn one and left half a car’s width, so I took that, and took to the grass, it was great racing. I want to highlight that there aren’t team orders, we are racing hard, but first and foremost we are not doing anything wrong by each other. I thought everyone did a great job, everyone did great, we will take second place and go one better tomorrow.”

Practice 1 – Eighth (Fastest Lap: 1:31.0740)
Practice 2 – Second (Fastest Lap: 1:29.8191)

Jamie Whincup – Car #88

Practice 1 – Sixth (Fastest Lap: 1:31.0230)
Practice 2 – Ninth (Fastest Lap: 1:30.0727)

Shane van Gisbergen – Car #97

“It was hard to know where we sat today. We had really average tyres, so we put some better ones on at the end which got us up there. The car feels really good as usual, we just have to push on into tomorrow and see how we go in qualifying because we don’t know really where we sit at the moment. Both sessions were pretty much the same story, sliding around everywhere, the track is so hard on tyres. We all have the same issue, which is nothing new, but it makes it very hard to really understand where everyone sits.”

Jamie Whincup – Car #88

“It was a good day. The new car feels really nice, which makes me really happy actually! We didn’t get it together at the end there, we were actually quite slow at the end, but that is what tonight is for so we can work out what happened. Most of the session we had great pace, it was more towards the end where we just did not maximise when we could have. But a bit of homework tonight should see us up there and we can push into the weekend with confidence.”