Shane van Gisbergen started 2017 where he left off in 2016 with a victory around the Adelaide Parklands Circuit.
The reigning world champion proved that he was just as focused now as he was last season and has every intention of defending his crown in the 2017 Supercars Championship.
The 27 year old also broke the lap record as he continued to lap faster than anyone else on the track, including his own teammate.
"What a great day, Awesome race! Hopefully we can do it again tomorrow," he beamed."I learned a lot about the tyre, how it goes in the heat and how it performs. The car is really good, it held up well, and once I got clean air towards the end I had a huge amount of pace. "
"In my mind, we are nearly there with car setup, but the car isn't perfect, so we will continue to push forward into tomorrow strong. Physically, it was a massive race, I really felt it when I got out of the car at the end. I'm stoked for the team to get this win, we've all worked so hard over the off-season and so to get to this point and kick off the season on a high note is an awesome success. "
Fabian Coulthard finished second just ahead of the charging James Courtney in third.
it was a brutal race with several drivers almost collapsing from the heat, including Taz Douglas, who was talking gibberish over the radio at one point so the team called him in and cooled him down before sending him back out to complete the race.
Dale Wood was another victim to the heat, who, after coming in with a broken gearbox, almost collapsed onto the floor, his bright red face a clear indication of the heat he was feeling.
There were multiple bad sportsmanship flags for kerbhopping, however only one driver was penalized for the offence, David Reynolds, leaving the Erebus team quite angry, especially after Jamie Whincup and Mark Winterbottom had a coming together that in their view needed a sanction, but nothing was done.
Top ten from race 1
Shane van Gisbergen
Fabian Coulthard
James Courtney
Cameron Waters
Rick Kelly
Jamie Whincup
Nick Percat
Craig Lowndes
Chaz Mostert
James Moffat
