Mostert breaks nine-year drought with Sydney double

The Mobil1 Optus Racing driver executed another two-stop strategy, overcoming Castrol Racing’s Cameron Waters on a one-stopper for the win at Sydney Motorsport Park.

The last time Mostert scored back-to-back Supercars race wins dates back to 2015 across the Queensland Raceway and Sydney Motorsport Park rounds that year.

It’s also the first time Mostert has swept a race weekend.

“It feels good, I wish I had done it a lot sooner,” said Mostert of the feat.

“It’s just a credit to the whole Walkinshaw Andretti United crew. We obviously rolled out a pretty good car and kept chipping away at it.

“Quali, we’re there or thereabouts this weekend, but the race car was something pretty special around here. Today the car was even better again which is a real credit to the team.

“I’m not sure what happened in those last 10 laps but when you’re leading and you’ve got a bit of a gap, you think something is going to go wrong.

“It took me all the way back to go kart days when you’re seven or eight and winning a state title and you hear the engine note change and all this kind of stuff. The last 10 laps were hell for me.

“I’m just glad to bring it home for the team.”

Lights out in Sydney and Davo and Chaz are fighting for the race lead!

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From pole position, Shell V-Power Racing Team driver Will Davison took the hole shot into turn one in the #17 Ford Mustang.

However, it wasn’t long before Mostert made his way by for the lead Davison got loose through turn four and narrowed the corner entry to turn five. That compromised Davison’s run to turn six and Mostert stuck his nose down the inside to take the lead.

On lap one, it was Mostert from Davison, Waters, Will Brown (Red Bull Ampol Racing), and James Golding (PremiAir Nulon Racing) who rose three spots.

Sixth was Anton De Pasquale (Shell V-Power Racing Team) ahead of Ryan Wood (Mobil1 Truck Assist Racing), Nick Percat (Bendix Racing), Tim Slade (PremiAir Nulon Racing), and Matt Payne (Penrite Racing).

The battle for seventh kicked off on lap seven when Percat got to the rear bumper of Wood at the penultimate corner. Percat snuck his nose down the inside going onto the main straight and unsettled Wood enough to go side-by-side.

As they fought, Payne got a double slipstream and dived to the inside of them both to go three-wide into turn one. Payne cleared them both in what Fox Sports commentator Mark Skaife hailed the “pass of the year”.

THIS IS SUPERCARS!

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Payne duly left Wood and Percat to scrap over eighth. Percat appeared to escort Wood wide out of turn three and the Kiwi returned serve at turn three causing the Matt Stone Racing driver to kick up dust and fell to 12th.

The drama continued when Tradie Beer Racing’s David Reynolds got alongside Wood into turn six. They banged doors before it turned pear-shaped when they made contact at Corporate Hill.

Wood half-spun and wobbled onto the grass while Reynolds went the other way and got turned into the gravel trap off the nose of Kostecki’s car.

Driving standards advisor Craig Baird gave the incident a look but ruled play-on. The incident proved costly for them both as Wood fell to 13th and Reynolds dropped to 18th.

Feeney was first to pit on lap 11 and executed a sizable undercut. A handful of cars pitted the following lap, including Payne, Wood, Castol Racing’s Thomas Randle, and Reynolds.

Once the pit stop sequence shook out, it was Mostert who led Davison to the tune of 11 seconds. Payne was just behind Davison in third and Golding was fourth some 17 seconds in arrears with Feeney on his tail.

Percat, Wood, Randle, Reynolds, and Evans completed the top 10 while the notable one-stoppers Waters, Brown, De Pasquale, and Kostecki were at the tail of the field.

The second round of pit stops began in earnest on lap 29 when Reynolds came to the lane for his second set of tyres and fuel. Payne, Feeney, and Randle came to the lane on lap 31 while Davison and Percat stopped on lap 32.

The race leader heads in for his final stop!

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The pivotal stop came on lap 33 when Mostert made his way to the lane. Once that was completed, Waters became the effective leader with a 10-second advantage over Mostert with 18 laps to go.

Between Waters and Mostert sat only Stanaway, Brown, and De Pasquale. Mostert made quick work of De Pasquale for fourth while Brown cleared an out-of-sequence Stanaway for second who pitted late.

CHAZ COMPLETES THE HUNT!

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With 15 laps to go, Mostert brought the gap to the lead down to under five seconds and with 11 to go had the pass completed at turn one.

The top three was unchanged to the chequered flag. Behind them, Payne passed Davison for fifth and set about chasing De Pasquale. At the death, Payne cleared De Pasquale at turn two and with it secured fourth.

Davison was sixth ahead of Erebus Motorsport’s Brodie Kostecki who rose from 13th. Percat was eighth, Golding ninth, and Randle 10th.

Supercars resumes on August 17-18 at Symmons Plains Raceway for the Tasmania SuperSprint.

Results: Panasonic Air Conditioning, Sydney SuperNight Race 16