Shane van Gisbergen has flown home from Darwin with a smashed up Commodore and his lead in the Supercars championship cut to 214 points.

Life has been injected into the Supercars' championship race after Shane van Gisbergen dropped crucial points in Darwin.

Two dramatic races concluded the Northern Territory round on Sunday as Chaz Mostert recovered from early heartbreak to grab a famous win.

But Van Gisbergen's grip on a second straight title slipped as he finished 21st in the third and final race.

The defending champion attacked too hard after the safety-car restart and ended up breaking his own power steering during an incident with Ford veteran Will Davison.

Van Gisbergen was also slapped with a 15-second time penalty for crashing into Davison.

"It would have been an interesting race after the safety car, but I made contact with (Davison) and we interlocked wheels which made me run wide into him, and caused some damage to the car," van Gisbergen said.

The mistakes allowed Shell V-Power ace Anton De Pasquale to cut the gap in the title race to 214 points after van Gisbergen started the weekend with a 281-point buffer.

De Pasquale and Davison's solid round after a disappointing event in Winton last month also allowed Dick Johnson Racing to overtake Red Bull Ampol in the drivers championship.

"It's a really good weekend for the team, we were on the podium in every race and 1-2 in race one and a couple of front-row lockouts in qualifying," De Pasquale said.

"Our race car has come a long way throughout the year so we'll try and carry that to (the next event in) Townsville.

"We had success there last year so looking forward to getting up there."

SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS

1. Shane van Gisbergen (Holden) 1581 points

2. Anton De Pasquale (Ford) 1367

3. Cam Waters (Ford) 1293

4. Will Davison (Ford) 1287

5. David Reynolds (Ford) 1111