Fabian Coulthard has admitted he was fortunate to salvage crucial championship points after being turned around in the early stages of Race 13 at Townsville.
The championship leader heading into the race was a victim of an incident involving multiple cars at Turn 2 on the opening lap, which demoted him to the back of the pack.
A concertina effect resulted in the DJR Team Penske being spun by Tim Slade’s Holden before then being struck by Todd Kelly’s Nissan and Jason Bright’s Prodrive Ford.
Despite his Falcon suffering noticeable damage, particularly to the rear wing, he was able to fight back to 11th position to claim vital points.
Given the hits his car suffered, he was lucky to avoid terminal damage.
“I’m not unhappy with 11th position,” Coulthard told Speedcafe.com.
Secure your spot today.
“We went right back to last, had to catch the guys. We just need to obviously not get turned around at the first corner and let us run our race.
“I got a fair hit from, I think it was Todd in the front, because he kind of glanced off and then the other one was Brighty into my driver door, passenger door.
“I don’t know the left-hand side. We were kind of locked together, so I had to wait for Jason Bright to reverse and then I could spin around. They were reasonable hits.
“Thankfully I didn’t hit any wheels, so all the alignment and things like that was fine.
“It was front contact, tore the rear, some of the rear wing off it, and that was flapping around in the breeze. We were pretty lucky.
“I could see it in my mirror sort of hanging a little bit left-hand down. It’s obviously very supported on the other side. Thankfully it’s not a super-high speed track.
“Obviously if we were at Phillip Island or Bathurst or something like that it’d be a completely different story.”
Coulthard’s drama resulted in him relinquishing the championship lead, as he dropped to third with a 68 point deficit to new leader and team-mate McLaughlin, who completed a dominant win.
The 34-year-old remains unconcerned by the current points standings.
“It’s early days. I’m really not bothered,” he added.
“It’s great for my guys to have the orange stickers on the car, but look, it’s important to have them in November.
“We’ve a lot of water to pass under the bridge between ow and then. We’ve got the Pirtek Enduro Cup to go, that can make or break your year.
“Once we get through those three races and see how we are, we could be well in it, we could be well out of it. We’ll have to evaluate it as the time comes.”
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