V8 Supercars: Slick van Gisbergen cleans up in the rain

Shane van Gisbergen climbed to fifth in the overall standings after a double in Sydney. Photo / Getty Images

Shane van Gisbergen hates driving in the rain - not that you could tell yesterday.

The Kiwi opened the weekend's V8 Supercars round at a soggy Sydney Motorsport Park with wins in both 100km races.

Not since Sandown in November 2011 has the championship endured a full day of wet racing, but van Gisbergen mastered it in his Holden to claim his first set of back-to-back victories.

"I can't explain why I go all right in [the wet]," said the Tekno Autosports driver, who started the pair of sprints from fourth and sixth respectively. "I've never enjoyed it.

"It rained almost every race in Formula Ford in New Zealand and sitting in an open cockpit car was the worst thing. I do, though, enjoy floating the car around and sliding a lot.

"It's awesome. I had to fight for it in the last one. After the safety car, my tyres were gone and I could see Chaz [Mostert] doing some good lines in the mirror. I copied him a bit and just held him out."

The result helped Holden secure the manufacturers' championship for a fifth straight year and saw van Gisbergen climb to fifth in the overall standings.

But while one Kiwi was celebrating a double, young Volvo driver Scott McLaughlin was left shattered with mechanical dramas while running in the front pack in the first race and then more issues in race two when starting from pole position.

McLaughlin's Valvoline Racing GRM team changed the engine in just over an hour between races but their miraculous effort went unrewarded with a mechanical failure early in the second race and he dropped to ninth on the championship ladder.

Fellow Kiwi Fabian Coulthard also endured a difficult day, failing to finish the first race and coming home seventh in the second. He's sixth in the standings.

Red Bull Racing's Jamie Whincup, who finished fourth and third in the two sprints, extended his series lead to 69 points over Ford Performance Racing's Mark Winterbottom.

Yet the Holden driver, who also broke Peter Brock's record for most pole positions in Australian touring car history, maintains it's still too early to worry about the title.

"I'm not thinking about the championship at all. I certainly wasn't being conservative out there," said Whincup, chasing a record sixth crown this year. "It was dog-eat-dog, I was trying to win that [second] race and the best I could do was third."

Winterbottom was intent on regaining his spot on top of the leaderboard after losing it to Whincup last round, but could only manage two 12th-place finishes.

He's 186 points ahead of veteran Craig Lowndes in third.

The day went a little better for his FPR teammate Mostert, who went from 16th in race one to second in race two.

Holden's Tim Slade was the track's first casualty after clashing with Ford pilot David Reynolds on the opening lap of the first race.

Today will see a 200km race. AAP