Maiden win 'hasn’t sunk in' for Heimgartner

Andre Heimgartner was still pinching himself in the days after his maiden Supercars race victory at the OTR SuperSprint.

Heimgartner was the man of the moment on Saturday at The Bend Motorsport Park, cruising to pole position before dominating the wet-dry Race 9.

So strong was the pace of the #7 NED Whisky Mustang, that Heimgartner had enough of a margin over his closest rival to win by four seconds despite being slapped with a five-second time penalty for a pit lane infringement.

It ended a 161-race wait for victory, some six years after he made his main game debut as a teenager.

WATCH: HEIMGARTNER ON TUESDAY NIGHT TAKEAWAY

“I had a few NED Whiskys to celebrate, and just chilled out,” he said on Supercars' Facebook live show, Tuesday Night Takeaway.

“I don’t think it’s sunk in 100 per cent yet.

“I watched the replay a couple of times, and it seems weird watching, thinking it was you out there.

“For so long in your career, especially the last few years, it’s been the one thing we’ve all been aiming for at Kelly Grove Racing.”

Saturday marked both the first pole and win of the Kelly Grove era, and the first win by a Kelly-prepared car since 2018.

P1 for Andre

It comes after David Reynolds, who endured a poor weekend at The Bend, scored a podium for the team in just the fifth race of the season.

Heimgartner said victory was the key goal for the team, something both team co-owner Brenton Grove and engineer Dilan Talabani both reiterated.

“To finally tick that off is amazing. Everyone’s happy at the team, there’s a good positive energy going on,” the 25-year-old said.

“We’ve still got a long way to go, I don’t think we’re where we want to be obviously yet; we saw on Sunday we weren’t quite fast enough.

“We will improve the cars over the next couple of months, and we should be up on the top step a bit more come the end of the year.”

WATCH: RECAP OF HEIMGARTNER’S FIRST WIN

Heimgartner and Kelly Grove Racing’s next test is enduring they remain competitive day on day; the #7 entry fell back on Sunday, with Heimgartner recording finishes of seventh and 10th.

Having returned to the top 10 in the standings, Heimgartner has turned his focus to the next round at Winton, which is the Braeside team’s testing venue.

Heimgartner believes his team’s hard work will carry over into the Victorian circuit, where has has finished no higher than eighth in nine starts.

“Everyone works so hard, we all know what’s involved when you get new owners in a team,” he said.

“You’re trying to build a team up and develop. There are so many long hours that go by the engineers, people that need to make the parts, the mechanics.

Heimgartner celebrates with his team

“There are so many different aspects, and so many hours to develop the cars; to get a result like this early on is a really good boost for morale.

“Going forward, we know we can do it; when the car’s right, we can win.

“We just need to figure out how to make the car right more often.”

The Repco Supercars Championship field will return to Victoria for the Winton SuperSprint across May 28-30. Tickets are available here.

The event will be broadcast live on Foxtel and will be streamed on Kayo with highlights on 7 and 7 Plus.