Supercars Adelaide 500: Shane van Gisbergen’s title hopes end after crash on opening lap

Shane van Gisbergen was forced to retire on the opening lap in Adelaide. Photo / Getty Images

Competing in his final Supercars races for the foreseeable future this weekend, Nascar-bound Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen had the chance to go out on top.

Heading into the weekend in Adelaide, van Gisbergen trailed series leader Brodie Kostecki by 131 points and would have needed things to go his way if he was to close that gap; even if the Kiwi won both of the weekend’s races, his Australian counterpart only needed two finishes as high as eighth to clinch the title.

Instead, the opposite happened.

Van Gisbergen saw his hopes extinguished just four turns into the first race after he crashed into Will Brown as Brown ricocheted off the barrier and into van Gisbergen’s path. Van Gisbergen was exiting the corner behind Cam Waters and while Waters was able to react and avoid Brown, van Gisbergen had no time for an evasive manoeuvre.

It wasn’t the sort of crash that involved flying debris , but there was significant damage to both cars and they retired from the race.

That meant van Gisbergen scored no points toward the season championship, and Kostecki only had to finish the race to be crowned the season champion.

He did that, with a safe drive seeing him finish sixth.

“Firstly, congratulations to Brodie (Kostecki) and the entire Erebus team for their championship win,” van Gisbergen said. “It’s pretty deflating the way today’s race ended, but that’s the way these things happen sometimes.

“The car isn’t looking too bad and I have full confidence that the crew can get it back to one hundred percent tomorrow – it would be nice to finish off the year with a good result. Broc did a fantastic job and managed to close the gap in the Teams’ Championship, so that’s our full focus tomorrow.”

At 26, Kostecki became the youngest champion since Kiwi Scott McLaughlin won his first Supercars title at 25 in 2018.

Triple Eight Race Engineering boss Jamie Whincup said on the broadcast he expected both van Gisbergen and Brown would have their cars back on the starting line for Sunday’s final race of the season.

“Thankfully no one got hurt, but there’s quite a bit of damage to both cars, but we’ll certainly be able to get it out tomorrow.”

Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.