McLaughlin seals clean sweep
Scott McLaughlin enjoyed a hat-trick of victories at the CoreStaff Darwin SuperSprint and at the same surpassed motorsport legend Peter Brock’s Supercars/ATCC race wins tally.
The Kiwi driver’s three triumphs from three starts in the latest round of the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship extends his advantage at the top of the drivers’ championship to 177 points.
“I love the track and I love it when my car is like that,” says McLaughlin, who drives for Shell V-Power Racing. “That’s hands-down probably the best car I have ever driven, just all weekend it was so solid.”
The two-time champion showed he meant business in the weekend’s opening race when he beat polesitter and closest title rival Jamie Whincup to the first turn and maintained his place at front until the chequered flag.
McLaughlin dominated from pole to finish in race two and completed his clean sweep of the August 23-24 event by winning the final race 13.8 seconds ahead of Nick Percat.
The Hamilton-born driver now has 51 Supercars championship race wins, with his first victory of the weekend moving him past Brock and into fifth on the category’s all-time winners list.
However, the 27-year-old says he feels there’s no comparison between himself and the late Australian, given the increased number of races in a modern season.
“It is very cool,” says McLaughlin of the statistic. “It’s a pretty proud moment for me and my family.
“[Brock] could have won a huge amount of races if he had the same format that I do right now, the amount of races that we get to have and win is a lot more, but I’m very proud to be in that sort of namespace.”
Sitting ahead of McLaughlin on the all-time tally is Garth Tander on 55 wins, Mark Skaife with 90, Craig Lowndes on 110, and Jamie Whincup has 120.
The championship next heads to Townsville on August 29-30.
Drivers’ championship
1. Scott McLaughlin, 1324pts
2. Jamie Whincup, 1147
3. Shane van Gisbergen, 979
4. Chaz Mostert, 972
5. Nick Percat, 915
