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Holden has won its final Supercars manufacturers’ championship title with five events to spare.
The manufacturers’ title is determined by race wins, and Shane van Gisbergen’s in Race 23 at The Bend was the Lion’s 18th of the season.
With Ford having scored only five thus far, and 11 races to go in 2022, Holden’s margin has become unassailable.
It is the last manufacturers’ championship which the Australian marque will ever win, having been retired from new car showrooms in 2020.
The ZB Commodore has continued to race in the meantime, but will be replaced on the General Motors side of the brand divide with the Chevrolet Camaro when the Gen3 era begins next year.
Holden has won the title 16 times out of a possible 24 since its inception in 1999, including a record seven in a row from 2010 to 2016, with Ford taking out the rest.
Van Gisbergen has contributed 14 of the 18 race wins this year, with the balance coming courtesy of Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Chaz Mostert.
That much is arguably a fitting send-off too, considering WAU is the former factory Holden Racing Team, yet will switch to the Ford Mustang in 2023.
“It still means a lot to a lot of people and the Holden fans, so it’s really cool to represent that,” said van Gisbergen of the triumph.
“We’ve got some big races coming up; obviously Bathurst, last time at Pukekohe, which Holden’s had some pretty good success there, and then of course ‘Clipsal’ [Adelaide, Holden’s home town] at the end of the year is going to be mega.
“So, hopefully we can send the Holden out in a good way.”
It was van Gisbergen and long-time Walkinshaw HRT man Garth Tander who drove a Triple Eight Race Engineering-entered Red Bull Holden Racing Team ZB Commodore to victory in the 2020 Bathurst 1000, representing its last factory team triumph at Mount Panorama.
The New Zealander then had the special honour of being able to complete his victory lap with a Holden flag handed over by a spectator, a scene which quickly became iconic.
In addition to the Great Race victory, both of his drivers’ championships have come in Holdens, in a VF Commodore in 2016 and ZB last year.
Van Gisbergen is in the box seat to go back-to-back given he now leads by 393 points after a sweep of this weekend’s OTR SuperSprint.
