The 20-year-old grabbed his second straight podium finish in the second race in Bahrain today, after zooming through the field from 14th on the grid and overcoming tyre issues that beset his Stone Brothers SP Tool Ford in the first race.

No-one could stop the two-time defending champion Jamie Whincup who skipped away to his fourth straight win of the new season in the Team Vodafone Holden, finishing clear of Mark Winterbottom (Ford Performance) and Van Gisbergen, who again set the fastest lap of the day, with a new record and the only driver under the 2m07sec barrier.

It moves the young Auckland driver to third on the championship standings behind Whincup and Winterbottom as the troupe heads back to Australia for the next round in Adelaide before heading across the Tasman for the ITM400 in Hamilton on 16-18 April.

 

“That’s the one I am aiming at. I want to do really well their more than any track. We’ve got a fast car and a great team, and I can’t think of anything better than to win in front of my friends, family and sponsors in Hamilton,” Van Gisbergen said.

 

“We changed the car for today and the tyres held on a lot longer. We are working pretty hard. We knew we were strong but not this strong. It’s a good thing.”

 

Fellow New Zealander Jason Richards pushed into the top 10 for the first time finishing eighth in he Team BOC Holden after qualifying sixth fastest.

 
“We obviously improved the car massively overnight which was a great job by the engineering group,” Richards said. “We had a big rethink on what we were doing and now we’re competitive in that top 5-10 group. Our aim is to finish here for the rest of the year, we learnt a lot  this week, it’s a low grip surface and we’ve always struggled here. I thought it was a great comeback and now we hope we can be competitive on the other low grip tracks.”  

 

Of the other New Zealanders Steven Richards (FPR) was 15th, Greg Murphy (Castrol racing Holden) 22nd, Daniel Gaunt (Gulf Western Holden) 23rd but Fabian Coulthard (Bundaberg Red Holden) did not finish.

 

Van Gisbergen remains the only New Zealander currently in the top 10 on the standings after four races in third behind Whincup and Winterbottom, with Jason Richards up to 14th, Steven Richards 20th, Coulthard 25th and Murphy 28th after missing the opening two races.

 

Whincup eclipsed the great Allan Moffatt’s 36 touring car championship wins along the way with his 37th victory. He won all four races to start last year and now moves back for the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide and ITM400 in Hamilton after that.

 

It wasn’t smooth sailing for Whincup who missed the start and fought back from fifth including the pass for the lead over Winterbottom, although the Ford driver fought back later in the race in a nose to tail battle over the concluding laps.

 

“That certainly wasn’t my perfect performance,” Whincup said. “It’s just a massive, massive effort from our team and one we are immensely proud of but my race wasn’t the best today.”