The Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia driver said he made a mistake just a few kilometres short of the stage’s end, which tore the wheel and suspension from his Toyota GR Yaris.

Bates won the first stage of the morning to lead Scott Pedder by 2.3s going into the second stage.

In the end, he wound up finishing a minute-and-a-half off the pace by the end of stage two, Oakey Camp.

“It was all going okay but I made a mistake just back here, two kilometres from the end and we’ve torn the right rear off the car,” said Bates.

“Not ideal, not an ideal start to the season. It’s my mistake. It was very silly.

“Not really from pushing, just a silly slight lapse of concentration towards the end there.

“Anyway, that’s life.”

Two stages remain in the morning before the midday service. It’s unclear whether the car will be fixed in time for the morning’s third stage.

Harry Bates’ brother Lewis crossed the finish line just behind and noted the difficult conditions.

“We had an okay stage. It’s really tricky conditions,” he said.

“The grip is quite unpredictable. I was pretty careful. It’s easy to make a mistake. We’re going along okay.

“I just saw. That’s a shame. It’s easy to happen. It’s so narrow in there, so many things to clip, and the grip levels are low. It’s a shame. Hopefully that can get it fixed.”

Bates wasn’t the only driver to strike trouble on SS2. Tom Clarke’s rebuilt Ford Fiesta R5 suffered a brake drama 10km into the 22km stage.

“Just couldn’t get a pedal at all so we had to stop to see what was going on,” said Clarke.

“I’m not 100 percent certain. It does look like we’ve busted a line but we’ve got absolutely no brakes.

“The first stage was okay, probably a little bit tentative in there. Started all right in that one but that’s a real blow to the day.”

After SS2, it was Pedder in his Skoda Fabia who led Hyundai i20 N pilot Hayden Paddon to the tune of 6.9s while Lewis Bates sat third and 20.8s in arrears.

Alex Rullo sits fourth at 29.2s adrift in the second-best Hyundai while Joshua Wiedman holds fifth in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX more than a minute and a half back.