The roll of the strategic dice worked well for van Gisbergen, who easily ran down race-long rivals Anton De Pasquale and Will Brown during his short final stint.
That sealed a perfect start to his title defence, the Kiwi joined on the podium by De Pasquale and a fast-finishing Chaz Mostert.
Andre Heimgartner was the only driver in the lead group to start on the supersoft compound, however a poor start meant he went backwards, from fourth to sixth, before going forwards.
Once he was going forwards, Heimgartner made rapid progress, working his way into second by lap four before catching and passing early leader De Pasquale on lap eight.
It was third-placed van Gisbergen who was first of the lead group to pit, taking on another set of softs on lap 20.
Heimgartner and De Pasquale, at that point split by around four seconds, followed suit on lap 24, Heimgartner switching to the soft as De Pasquale took on supersofts.
As the stops shook out, van Gisbergen took over the lead ahead…
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