Van Gisbergen sweep hands Holden the title

Shane van Gisbergen completed a clean sweep of the three races at the OTR The Bend SuperSprint, taking home all 105 points on offer.

The third win of the event was his fifth in a row, 14th of the season, 68th of his career and gave Holden an unassailable lead in the manufacturers’ championship standings.

It gives Holden a final manufacturers’ championship win, with the Holden name and Commodore car in its final season before the introduction of the Chevrolet Camaro under the Gen3 rules in 2023.

Van Gisbergen now leads Cameron Waters in the drivers’ championship standings by 393 points, with Anton De Pasquale third, Will Davison fourth and Chaz Mostert rounding out the top five.

“It’s obviously a great weekend when you walk away with 315 points, including three fastest lap results,” said van Gisbergen.

“It was also great to claim the manufacturers title this weekend for Holden and GM. The brand still means a lot to a lot of people so it’s really cool to represent them.

“We have some big races coming up, including Bathurst, Pukekohe and Adelaide where it will be Holden’s last showing, so hopefully we can send the Holden badge out in a good way.”

The second race of the event saw a huge start-line accident between Thomas Randle and Andre Heimgartner, with the former stalling on the grid and hit by the latter. Both were transported to hospital for precautionary scans and were released without injuries.

The event started with a shock pole position for Tickford Racing wildcard entrant Zak Best, who went on to finish in fifth place in his second solo main-game event start.