What a difference a day makes.
On Saturday Holden’s Shane Van Gisbergen was daring to dream of an unlikely charge to defend his Supercars championship following a race win at his hometown circuit in New Zealand.
By Sunday afternoon that hope was as wrecked as his Red Bull Holden Racing Team Commodore.
Van Gisbergen appeared to enter pitlane too fast and speared into the back of Tim Slade’s Holden on the 23rd lap of the 70-lap race.
The accident smashed the front of his car and despite a drastic repair job by his garage which allowed him to re-enter the race 13 laps later, Van Gisbergen’s 24th-place finish won’t be enough to keep him in the championship hunt.
Jamie Whincup’s win means Van Gisbergen is 276 points behind his teammate going into this month’s season finale at Newcastle.
With a maximum haul of 300 points all that is possible in that event, only an extremely unlikely set of circumstances would allow Van Gisbergen to retain the title he won last year.
“Big shame, sorry to my guys, we had a pretty good car, we would’ve been able to fight up there but we’ll see how we go at Newcastle,” Van Gisbergen told Fox Sports.
“I’ve got the best team in pitlane. The way they turned it around, the car was safe, went back out there and in the amount of time managed to get some points.
“Sorry to them and sorry to everyone on the hill – let them down – but gave it a good crack.”