'Pretty happy' Mostert not thinking about title fight

Chaz Mostert was nonplussed about the 2021 championship battle despite outscoring both Red Bull Ampol Racing drivers in the OTR SuperSprint opener.

Mostert started and finished second on Saturday, crossing the line nearly nine seconds adrift of Race 9 winner Andre Heimgartner.

The Walkinshaw Andretti United driver loomed to race into an early lead after winning the race to Turn 1, but ceded the lead with an error at Turn 5.

He remained Heimgartner’s closest challenger in the 24-lapper, but couldn’t match the pace of the runaway #7 NED Whisky Mustang.

Championship leader Shane van Gisbergen and Jamie Whincup finished seventh and sixth respectively, with the former clinching fastest lap bonus points.

WATCH: FIRST LAP DRAMA

Heading into Sunday, Mostert is two points behind Whincup, and slashed the deficit to van Gisbergen from 165 points to 142 points.

Instead of weighing into championship battle chatter, Mostert praised Heimgartner, who won his first race in 161 starts.

“I don’t think about that, to be honest,” Mostert said of the title fight.

“First of all, congrats to Andre, he drove a perfect race and was super quick.

“For us, we’ve got a little bit of work to do overnight, but we’re happy with second.

“Starting second, we got the start; probably a little bit of strategy stuff we didn’t do quite right, more from tyre selection.

“Overall, pretty happy today, to come off a win and back it up with a second in tricky conditions; it’s been a long day.”

With the Mostert podium, WAU brought up its 250th podium, some 31 years after the team debuted under the Holden Racing Team moniker.

Mostert, who joined the team in 2020, has scored nine podiums and two pole positions for the decorated Holden team, and won his first race in WAU colours in Tasmania last month.

“It’s obviously a pretty special team in the history of Supercars,” he said.

WATCH: RACE 6 RECAP

“We’ve come a long way; we’ve got two overseas owners as well, and the team’s a lot different than it was in those ways.

“We’re all about making our own heritage, and we’ll be pushing forward into the future.”

However, while delighted to help WAU bring up a key milestone, the racer in Mostert already had eyes on closing the gap to Heimgartner.

“We’ll go through debrief tonight; after last year, and tyre debacles, definitely around our team, we were pretty conservative today,” he said.

“Maybe that’s something we need to look into tomorrow.

“Overall, I think we were around top three pace, but Andre drove a perfect race, he was super quick.

“Some of us need to pull our finger out to beat him, no doubt.”

The Repco Supercars Championship field will return on Sunday for Race 10 qualifying at 9:40am AEST. Check out the full weekend schedule here.

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