"Down the toilet"

Shane van Gisbergen has been left lamenting a missed opportunity to extend his lead in the 2016 V8 Supercars Championship.

The quick Kiwi and new Red Bull recruit led the majority of the 84-lap race at Symmons Plains until a late race incident saw his Commodore slip on oil and off-track from the lead.

The car lodged in the barrier and van Gisbergen was unable to get out while Will Davison slipped through and snuck the victory after showing pace all weekend.

Van Gisbergen would not take questions from the media after the race but said in quotes issued by the team he “just mucked up” with a handful of laps remaining.

“At the end, we had really great pace and pulled away, but I just mucked up at the hairpin where the oil was and I just couldn't stop and got stuck,” he said.

“So, 150 points down the toilet really. We had fast cars all weekend, we were the quickest, it's a real shame that it ended that way."

Van Gisbergen’s teammate Jamie Whincup also had a shocker, caught in the same incident and slamming into Andre Heimgartner.

Prior to that he made a mistake at the hairpin, and double staked behind van Gisbergen. He described the weekend as “gut-wrenching” after his “rookie error”.

Team boss Mark Dutton said Red Bull would focus on the positives from the weekend, including TeamVortex’s Craig Lowndes’ second place finish today.

He wasn’t surprised at van Gisbergen’s disappointment after such a dominant performance this weekend.

“No matter how many times you win, he had to work hard to race for that position to be there at the end and have the opportunity. You don’t take that for granted, so when it is snatched away with just a little bit of oil, just appeared to catch it, you’re bitterly disappointed,” Dutton told v8supercars.com.

After finishing one-two yesterday, the feeling in the garage was a lot different this evening.

“After such a strong showing yesterday and some really strong stuff it’s obviously not where we wanted to be,” Dutton said.

“That said, excellent speed, the engineers did a good job with strategy, things like that – so really, took a lot of positives from today.

“Today is a day you’re happy to have three cars because CL represented well and came through for p2, so happy with that.”

Dutton said part of the game was taking the lows with the highs as a team.

“We win together and have issues together as well. “I’m really happy with the whole team – all weekend we worked well … disappointed in the result obviously but really happy with everyone’s performance.”