While McLaughlin and his co-driver Alex Premat were presented with the Peter Brock Trophy after claiming the chequered flag at Mount Panorama in car #17 last Sunday, there were calls for the victory to be stripped in the wake the go-slow safety car incident involving his team-mate Coulthard.

But following a hearing into the incident on Saturday, CAMS stewards said that McLaughlin's maiden win in the 161-lap Great Race stands.

The decision came as a relief to McLaughlin, who late last week revealed the frustration and anxiety he felt ahead of the hearing while his victory was provisional rather than official.

"What probably should be the greatest week of my life, I'm not going to lie, it has been a bit sad and it could have been a lot better for us to enjoy it," he told Fox Sports.

But while McLaughlin and Premat avoided any punishment, Coulthard and DJR Team Penske were found guilty of breaching FIA rules during the race.

The rule in question, D24.1, states that "team orders ... means an instruction to a driver or team member, either verbal or otherwise the effect of which may interfere with a race result."

Coulthard, who shared his #12 Mustang with Tony D'Alberto, was relegated from sixth to be the last of the classified finishers in 21st. It also means he drops from third to fourth in the drivers championship standings.

DJR Team Penske was handed a $250,000 fine - of which $100,000 is suspended until the end of 2021 - and docked 300 points from their teams' championship tally.

"We are prepared to assume that there was no intention to advantage car #17, however, it defies belief that the engineer of car #12 just happened to have formed a mistaken belief that there was debris at some unknown location on the circuit and that just fortuitously resulted in the very problem anticipated with car #12 being resolved," it said in the stewards' decision.

"We find, and it has been admitted, that in giving the direction to the driver of car #12, DJRTP infringed the principles of fairness in competition and behaved in an unsportsmanlike manner.

"We do not find that there was an attempt to influence the result of the race, but it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the result was affected to a degree, certainly for car #12 that would otherwise have re-joined the circuit after its pit stop in a much lower position."

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The drama began on lap 135 of last Sunday's race during a safety car period when Coulthard, who was running third at the time, slowed.

A gap of 47 seconds opened up between his Mustang and that of team-mate McLaughlin, who was sitting second behind Red Bull Racing's Jamie Whincup.

It allowed both Whincup and McLaughlin to pit for a fuel top-up and tyre change and emerge in first and fourth respectively. It also prevented issues with double-stacking.

Coulthard was black flagged the following lap for a breach of rule D10.2.2.3 (excessive distance between cars under the safety car) and went on to place sixth.

"It was a directive .... the team said to me 'take extreme caution, the engine is hot'," Coulthard told Supercars.com as the reasoning behind his go-slow.

After the race, DJR Team Penske boss Roger Penske said he felt the incident did not make "the difference on who's going to win the race."

"We can look at it and talk about it, but it's secondary as far as I'm concerned when you think about what happened at the end," he said.

"Everybody had a chance. When that was all over, the two top guys had a chance to duel to the end."