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Scott McLaughlin appears unstoppable on his way to winning this year's Supercars title.

New Zealand's Scott McLaughlin won Saturday's Supercars race in Darwin, holding off a late challenge from his compatriot Shane van Gisbergen.

In 30 degree heat in the Northern Territory city, McLaughlin drove a tactically superb race where he was able to get into the front without having to overtake any of his rivals, thanks to a well timed pitstop.

David Reynolds started from pole, making this a rare occasion where McLaughlin didn't begin a race in the prime position.

But McLaughlin was able to join Reynolds on the front row, with van Gisbergen the fifth fastest in qualifying and Andre Heimgartner an impressive seventh in his Nissan Altima.

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Reynolds managed to hold McLaughlin off to lead at the first corner, while Heimgartner had a bad start and quickly slipped down to 11th.

McLaughlin did a pitstop on the seventh lap, joining other drivers who did their mandatory stop early, while Reynolds chose to stay out and look to build up a lead.

Van Gisbergen ran the same strategy and steadily closed the gap to the Australian, but pitted on the 20th lap, one lap short of the midway point in the race.

Two laps later Reynolds was in for his stop, which took slightly longer than it should have and he rejoined the race behind the leading contenders. 

Van Gisbergen was battling with Rick Kelly and Jamie Whincup for the virtual second place of the race, with McLaughlin in the lead.

By lap 35 Michael Caruso made his stop, to make McLaughlin's lead official, but he had van Gisbergen breathing down his neck and Reynolds not far behind.

It set the race up for a thrilling finish, but it didn't quite work out like that, as van Gisbergen never really got the opportunity to make an overtaking manoeuvre on McLaughlin and the top three finished in the same order.

It goes down as McLaughlin's 22nd win in his Supercar career and he extends his lead in the championship.

Fabian Coulthard finished the race in 15th place, Heimgartner was 16th and Richie Stanaway placed 23rd.

"I'm glad I didn't have a heart rate monitor on – I would have blown the thing off the scale!" McLaughlin said afterwards.

"Thanks to everyone at Shell V-Power Racing Team, they put a lot of faith in me to bring it home today, and thankfully I did.

"I wanted that win really bad to repay all the hard work the boys have been doing behind the scenes, and for it to be the 100th win for the team makes it a really great day."

As for Van Gisbergen, he said issues with his Holden stopped him making a real challenge on McLaughlin.

"There was a bit of a gap to the leaders at the start and then we settled into the rhythm which was really good," van Gisbergen said. 

"It took a while for the car to come on and then it was really nice and we kept charging. 

"We pitted about halfway and undercut (David) Reynolds which was awesome and then had some fun coming though the middle of the field.

"We couldn't quite get Scotty, everything just got hot and he was driving well, placing the car nicely but as soon as we caught up, the heat here just causes the tyres to overheat and everything got hot and I lost grip. 

"We tried to have a tyre differential so we could have enough grip to pass him but it wasn't to be."

 - Stuff