Motorsport: Shane van Gisbergen - it was great to win

Shane van Gisbergen celebrates after winning race 23 at the Auckland SuperSprint. Photo / Getty Images

It was awesome to get the race win yesterday and I celebrated it with a big burnout because it has been a while since my last win.

The crowd was awesome and really supportive. They love having a Kiwi win. They are so passionate and it doesn't matter who it is as long as it is Kiwi winning.

It was a tough race. It was so sketchy on the out lap to the grid so we had to decide whether to take slicks or wets to start the race. It is 20 minutes from then to the start of the race and the track could have dried or not in that time. In the end it was a straight-forward call.

The race started - it was hard with the one line not knowing where the grip was. We pitted early - one of the early ones to do that - we knew it was going to be pretty close on that last pit stop. Unfortunately Jamie Whincup and Scott McLaughlin got mucked around by the safety car. I had a similar thing at Bathurst and I think they probably need to work on tidying that up. It worked for us yesterday but we would have been very close anyway.

There is a big difference between chasing someone and being in front of someone. What happens when you are behind is you lose the aerodynamics. I was really struggling for front grip so once I got in front all my problems were solved and the guys behind me were struggling. I made sure I didn't pull away and kept their aero bad (for the car behind) and that worked for us.

It was a shame for fans that qualifying was canceled but they made the right call with that. The conditions were simply horrendous.

The first corner and last corner have been resealed and they were fine. There was plenty of grip there but there is something about the back straight. I think it is just too fresh - they did it too recent - and it became unsafe to drive on in those conditions.

Driving standards advisor Craig Baird must have been listening to my radio. I finished the first lap and said on the radio that it was crazy and that I was pitting and then he red-flagged it. I think he thought I would be the last guy to back out of it.

Our tyres are not really built for really wet conditions so it was definitely the right call.

They set the grid off Friday's practice times, which was probably the fairest option. We started sixth on the good side of the grid and made a great start and it worked out well.
Hopefully it won't rain like today it is meant to and we can have a full day's racing.

I have closed the gap a little in the championship fight but I'm just trying not to think about it. I always go better when I don't really care. I just need to stay focused and keep doing what I am doing and things will keep happening for us.

We have a good car and we just need to stay on top of it today.