Shane van Gisbergen puts controversy behind him to win in Adelaide

TONGUES were wagging about Kiwi star Shane van Gisbergen before he had arrived at the V8 Supercars season opener in Adelaide.

MOTORSPORT: Tongues were wagging about Kiwi star Shane van Gisbergen before he had arrived at the V8 Supercars season opener in Adelaide - for all the wrong reasons.

However, the controversial driver walked away from the tight street circuit with a more positive buzz yesterday after holding out defending champion Jamie Whincup to win the second 250km race of the weekend.

Van Gisbergen was the talk of the track before anyone had turned a wheel after his former team threatened legal action in a bid to stop him from racing following a messy off-season departure.

And the flying Kiwi continued to dominate conversation by clinching his third career victory.

He finished more than two seconds ahead of four-time championship winner Whincup, whose Triple Eight Holden teammate Craig Lowndes was third in front of a sell-out 95,000-strong crowd.

Van Gisbergen ended a 34-race winning run by Holden's Triple Eight and Ford Performance Racing which had combined to claim every V8 Supercars event since November 2011.

He was in a more talkative mood yesterday, two days after brushing the media when the topic of his ugly fallout with former Ford team Stone Brothers Racing was raised.

The young upstart's win seemed an apt way to usher in an exciting era under new Car of the Future (COTF) specifications.

All 28 competitors boasted new vehicles, including newcomers Mercedes and Nissan, the first time an entire field had done so in the same round in touring car history.

Initially, it seemed nothing had changed when Lowndes took out the opening 250km race by more than 20 seconds on Saturday after pole-sitter van Gisbergen had gearbox trouble.

But van Gisbergen has sounded his intentions in a Holden that was made by the same team that produced Whincup and Lowndes' cars.

AAP