Supercars star Shane van Gisbergen delivered an elegant ride from the crater to win the 66th run of the New Zealand Grand Prix at Hampton Downs.
After wins in Races 1 and 2, van Gisbergen’s hopes for a complete sweep in the season opener of Toyota Racing Series received a major blow when the fire extinguisher on his car went off while still in the pits.
With the M2 Championship team unable to install a new unit before the cut-off time, the 2016 Supercars champion had to start from the pit.
But as the 28-lap contest progressed, van Gisbergen almost caught up with the field, as Daniel Gaunt defeated polesitter Kaleb Ngatoa at Turn 2 to take the lead.
Van Gisbergen had climbed his way up to 11th when the safety car was set to retrieve Peter Vodanovich’s car, minutes after Chris van der Drift broke his front wing while trying to bypass Gaunt for the lead.
When the race resumed after SC’s intervention, van Gisbergen immediately moved, passing several cars to put himself in the front group.
With 14 laps to go, the 31-year-old was up to third, just behind Gaunt and his Supercars co-driver Andre Heimgartner, who was running in podium position after a quick start from eighth on the grid.
Van Gisbergen first cleared Heimgartner at the Dipper and then started running Gaunt, which had so far done enough to hold the lead.
But in the end the main champion TRS had no response at van Gisbergen’s pace, with the M2 Championship driver making a lunge at the crossbar with 10 laps to go to move into the race direction.
Out in front of him, van Gisbergen slowly began to carve a gap for himself and eventually won the all-Kiwi race by just over two seconds.
Heimgartner passed Gaunt shortly after van Gisbergen completed his move to finish second, while Matthew Payne finished the podium spots in third place.
TRS rookie and polesitter Ngatoa couldn’t keep up with the leaders as the race progressed, eventually taking the checkered flag in fourth place, nearly 9s off the lead.
Van der Drift got out of an unorganized pit to change the front wing to get the top five results, overtaking Damon Leitch and Brendon Leitch late in the race.
Gaunt, who has led the race so far, had to settle for eighth place, ahead of Billy Frazer and veteran racing driver Greg Murphy.