Van Gisbergen/Webb claim wild Surfers opener
Tekno Autosports' Shane Van Gisbergen and Jonathon Webb have emerged from the opening race of the Gold Coast 600 with their first win of the 2015 VS Supercars season around the Surfers Paradise.
The Tekno pairing successfully kept themselves out of harms way to win the opening race of the weekend, while a string of incidents behind the leaders severely dented the hopes of both points' leader Mark Winterbottom and reigning champion Jamie Whincup.
Van Gisbergen's co-driver Webb started the race despite being struck with an ill-timed stomach bug. But a commanding opening stint from the Kiwi's team mate left the duo in prime position to claim their first victory of the 2015 Pirtek Enduro Cup.
The Triple Eight bound racer duly took the reigns from Webb during the driver change phase of the race and carried the Team Darrell Lea STIX Commodore home to a 1.6 second margin over The Ford Falcon FG X of David Reynolds and Dean Canto in second position.
Reynolds and Canto worked their way up from eighth position on the grid thanks to a number of key contenders falling by the wayside as the race progressed.
The Polestar Volvo pairing of Scott McLaughlin and ex-DTM racer Alexandre Premat had initially held second but Premat's over exuberance over the kerb's damaged the S60's front splitter, which required a longer pit-stop than anticipated.
Elsewhere, Whincup's challenge took a major blow when his Red Bull co-driver Paul Dumbrell was tagged into a half-spin and subsequently received damage to the rear right after hitting the tyre wall.
Prodrive's Winterbottom and Steve Owen joined their Triple Eight rivals in strife and fell down the order later in the race when a pit-stop blunder from the Pepsi Max Crew released the overall points' leader directly into the path of Holden's Garth Tander.
Not only did Winterbottom receive a penalty for the clash, the Prodrive squad also lost a huge number of laps when repairing the damaged Pepsi Max Falcon.
Bathurst winners Craig Lowndes and Steve Richards took advantage of Prodrive's plight to take the final step on the podium, which has allowed Lowndes to close in on Winterbottom's overall championship lead.
HRT's two-car effort completed the top-five despite both machines making contact while battling over the same piece of tarmac.
The Tander/Warren Luff combination prevailed over the returning James Courtney and his co-driver Jack Perkins while Nick Percat and Oliver Gavin narrowly held sixth ahead of Freighliner Racing's Fabian Coulthard and Luke Youlden in seventh.
DJR Team Penske's Scott Pye and Marcos Ambrose made up seven positions from their qualifying performance to finish in eighth as Rick Kelly and James Moffat both completed the top-ten for Nissan in ninth and tenth.
