In an action-packed and wet and wild weekend at the Sandown Supersprint, Red Bull Ampol Racing’s Shane van Gisbergen put on a career performance sweeping to victory in all three races.
Shane joins an exclusive club with the performance, becoming just the fourth driver in history to start a season with five straight wins giving him an enviable lead in the 2021 championship and a giant target painted on the back of ninety-seven the rest of the season.
Not even nine screws and a plate inserted into a broken collarbone just a fortnight ago could stop the blazing kiwi, who came from seventeenth in the first race of the weekend to claim victory and dominated in the wet to hold out the win in two consecutive races.
Van Gisbergen now sits alongside three hall of fame inductees for the best start to a season; Alan Moffat (1977), Peter Brok (1980), and Mark Skaife (1994), the only drivers in history to start a season with five or more consecutive wins.
Rookie Brodie Kostecki also had a career-defining weekend with a podium in his sixth career race start in the main game, taking out second place in front of the former driver of his car 9, Kelly racing’s David Reynolds.
Notable mention to Will Brown, who is Kostecki’s Erebus teammate, also came from the back of the pack to be up 12 positions before pitting at the close of the race and finishing in seventh.
