Shane van Gisbergen believes a drive to a podium from ninth in Race 10 of the Supercars Championship at Symmons Plains belies his true pace, or lack thereof.
The Red Bull Ampol Racing driver gained two positions off the start and inherited another on Lap 3 when carnage unfolded ahead of him which accounted for championship leader Brodie Kostecki, among others.
Van Gisbergen rose to fourth with overtakes of Truck Assist Racing duo Jack Le Brocq and Cameron Hill, and was back there once the pit stop cycle completed.
A last lap pass of Cameron Waters yielded him the final podium place in the opening heat of the Ned Whisky Tyrepower Tasmania SuperSprint, although he maintains it was not reflective of real performance.
“I did nothing; they took themselves out,” quipped the three-time champion.
“I sort of had no speed, I just sort of wallowed around, but after the stop, my car did get a bit better. We’ve been struggling a lot today.
“The last lap, obviously it was pretty interesting with Cam. I’m not sure if he did side or rears [pit stop], but he had nothing left at the end, and I had a good race with him.”
Van Gisbergen could cite mitigating circumstances in his relatively subpar qualifying result, namely an unfortunately timed yellow flag, although he said he was “not much” quicker than ninth.
Still, it was an afternoon when the New Zealander gained ground on the two men who started the day ahead of him in the title race, reducing his deficit to Kostecki to 74 points and overtaking Chaz Mostert.
“I guess days like today, when you’re not the fastest car, it’s good to have some luck sometimes,” admitted SVG.
“I just stayed out of trouble and tried to do the best I could, but it’s very hard to have a clean whole year.
“But, Brodie especially has a lot of car speed over us; we probably need to find car speed first.”
The Triple Eight Race Engineering pilot may have moved up to second in the drivers’ championship but he now has Kostecki’s team-mate, Will Brown, nipping at his heels at 21 points behind after scoring an all-the-way victory in Race 10.
Qualifying for Races 11 and 12 takes place tomorrow morning from 09:50 local time/AEST.
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