Van Gisbergen: Davison tyre difference 'unfair'

Shane van Gisbergen believes he and Will Davison were “evenly matched” despite winning Saturday’s race.

Van Gisbergen and Davison placed first and second in Saturday’s NTI Townsville 500 opener.

The points leader ran down Davison and made the pass for the lead at the end of lap 84.

There was a fuel discrepancy between the two after Davison took only 60 litres at his first stop.

When Davison pitted again at the end of lap 55, he was 13 seconds to the good relative to van Gisbergen.

Van Gisbergen pressed on and stopped on lap 64, giving him a nine-lap tyre advantage over Davison.

The margin between the two was 17 seconds, but van Gisbergen chewed into it and caught Davison with five laps to go.

Van Gisbergen hit his markers and achieved victory, but was adamant the tyre advantage won him the race.

“We were really pushing,” van Gisbergen said.

“I could see Davo’s lines when I caught him in the first stint and the last stint as well.

“The offset in the tyres is what won us the race. Otherwise, we were pretty evenly matched.

“18 seconds was a stupid amount, I just wanted to know Will’s lap time every lap.

“I wanted to get there with five laps [to go]… the target was perfect.

“It’s a bit unfair when his tyres were so much older.”

Davison beat van Gisbergen off the line and held the early running behind Super Soft-shod Tim Slade.

Van Gisbergen had to overhaul Davison twice in the race, with the two swapping positions on lap 13.

Davison did all her could in the closing laps, and had to contend with traffic as he tried to keep van Gisbergen at bay.

However, the tyre disparity proved too large a mountain to overcome, and he settled for second.

“It was a good fun race, I enjoyed the battle,” Davison said.

"Without a Safety Car, it’s pretty full-on, so the old-time trial race, you know hearing times and managing weird gaps.

“Knowing it was going to come down to the last three or four laps is a very tricky way to manage.

“Coming up to cars who were a lap down or cars who started on the Super Soft, it was very easy to overheat your tyres.

“You're just constantly trying to just be consistent and minimise mistakes.

"We came in very aggressive early, which we had a crack, and we were covering Chaz and we didn’t want him undercutting us.

“So really, that’s what drew our strategy to what it was.”