State of play: Eseries halfway point

Having reached the halfway point of the BP Supercars All Stars Eseries, the movers and shakers have begun to sort themselves out.

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Scott McLaughlin sits atop the Coates Hire Leaderboard – but unlike in the 2019 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship, the title battle remains wide open.

Supercars.com takes a look at the state of play heading into Round 6 at Circuit of the Americas this week.

The contenders

Despite being yet to secure an ARMOR ALL Pole, McLaughlin has just about found himself leading the entire Eseries.

The Shell V-Power Racing driver has racked up four wins to this point and holds a 74-point advantage over Cameron Waters.

The latter has openly admitted he doesn’t have the outright iRacing pace of the top few but has come into his own in dodging crashes to pick up points at every opportunity.

Waters has finished 15 of the 17 races to date inside the top 10 in a campaign headlined by a win and five further podiums.

But as per the last two seasons of real-life racing, McLaughlin’s biggest threat probably comes from his countryman Shane van Gisbergen.

The Red Bull Holden Racing Team driver is 96 points off the Eseries lead but is arguably the form driver.

Van Gisbergen was stripped of his Race 15 victory for last-lap contact with Anton De Pasquale but still has more wins than any other driver – and all five of those have come in the past 11 races.

No other driver is less than 275 points behind McLaughlin, setting up a possible three-horse title race through the back half of the Eseries.

The surprise packets

Besides Waters, Chaz Mostert is among those to have impressed perhaps beyond expectations.

After all, the 28-year-old did tip pre-series he would more so be a contender for a biggest crash award than any kind of actual contending.

As it has turned out, Mostert has been a regular towards the pointy end of the field – including a win at Monteal – to be positioned fourth in the standings.  

At Matt Stone Racing, all three drivers have featured on the podium already but it has been the ‘old dog’ leading the way most often.

Garry Jacobson is only 28 but that makes him eight years older than Zane Goddard and Jake Kostecki, who both had some prior level of simulator experience.

Jacobson was less of a known quantity… but one thing you can count on with the Shepparton product is that he works extremely hard at his craft.

He is eighth on the leaderboard, with Kostecki and Goddard 14th and 15th respectively.

Bryce Fullwood has been another to shine, giving Walkinshaw Andretti United fans plenty of reasons to smile.

The 2019 Dunlop Super2 Series winner admitted pre-series he had never really had the chance to get familiar with simulators in the past, but he has got up to speed quickly to be 10th overall.

Doing it tough

Anton De Pasquale is fifth and less than 300 points off the Eseries lead, but it has been a tough run for the Penrite Racing driver.

Tipped as a ‘hot favourite’ by McLaughlin, De Pasquale has generally been the class of the field in qualifying with blistering pace.

A string of unfortunate incidents, particularly in reverse grid races, however have prevented that pace from always translating into results.

Scott Pye has been another to be brought unstuck by the carnage; few would have expected him to be level on points with veteran teammate but simulator rookie Mark Winterbottom down in equal 17th.

Of the drivers to have competed in every round, Rick Kelly, Chris Pither and Jack Smith are at the back of the pack. Just ahead of that trio sits Alex Davison, who most notably flipped his Local Legends Commodore at the first corner of a race in Bathurst.

The wildcards

Red Bull Formula 1 star Max Verstappen was a success story in Round 2 but the honour of the biggest haul of points goes to Dunlop Super2 Series leader Brodie Kostecki (246 to 233).

The Penrite Racing endurance co-driver took a double podium in the Bathurst round.

His Super2 peers Will Brown, Thomas Randle, Angelo Mouzouris, Jayden Ojeda and Broc Feeney have all impressed in patches.

Other wildcards to have jumped on the podium are Alexander Rossi and Lando Norris, who will return this week for a second straight appearance.

Will Power, Marcos Ambrose, Simona De Silvestro, Joey Logano, James Courtney and Jack Doohan have also lined up at various points.

Along with Norris, Garth Tander and Josh Fife will join the field at Circuit of the Americas for Round 6 this Wednesday night.

Coates Hire Leaderboard: Round 5