Ford's Anton De Pasquale has broken through for his first Supercars win of 2022 with Shell V-Power teammate Will Davison helping him to victory.
In his 500th Supercars race, Davison was able to keep Shane van Gisbergen at bay as the rampant championship leader charged home in the first 38-lap race of the Darwin Triple Crown on Saturday.
De Pasquale held the lead since mid-race after Davison started from pole but van Gisbergen never gave in to finish less than two seconds away from his 10th win of the season.
Van Gisbergen flew past Chaz Mostert with three laps remaining but Davison played the team role perfectly as the defending champion was unable to pip the Dick Johnson Racing pair.
But the start of the race did not go to plan for Davison and De Pasquale with the teammates coming together after being at the front of the grid.
They made contact with each other but both drivers attempted to play down the incident.
It was the ultimate response from DJR after Davison and De Pasquale both failed to finish higher than eighth during three races at Winton last month.
"We sort of got tangled all the way through, but we both came out the other side so hopefully it's all good racing and it came off as good race to watch," De Pasquale said.
"It's awesome to have both of us up here on the podium."
After starting from fourth, van Gisbergen appeared a certainty to prevail before a poor pit-stop costing him about four crucial seconds.
De Pasquale's eighth career win ensured he closed the gap in the championship standings to sit 272 points behind van Gisbergen.
"We tried three tyres to do something different and try to get the fastest lap," van Gisbergen said.
"Unfortunately our pit-stop didn't go that well and just ran out of laps to make up ground.
"We were never going to pass these guys, they're two good drivers, their cars are good so we thought we'd try the three tyres."
Mostert, who finished fourth, was on Saturday night disqualified from the race after stewards found Walkinshaw Andretti United illegally operated a fan onto the radiator of his Commodore on the starting grid.
The reigning Bathurst 1000 champion lost the 80 points he earned for the race to remain fifth in the championship standings.
Mostert's disqualification allows Commodore drivers Andre Heimgartner and Mark Winterbottom to move into fourth and fifth place.
Two more races on Sunday will complete the Supercars' first Indigenous round.
DARWIN TRIPLE CROWN RACE ONE
1. Anton De Pasquale (Ford)
2. Will Davison (Ford)
3. Shane van Gisbergen (Holden)
4. Andre Heimgartner (Holden)
5. Mark Winterbottom (Holden)
