De Silvestro penalised for last corner pass on Golding

Simona De Silvestro has been relegated from 17th to 21st in the final race of the Beaurepaires Melbourne 400 due to a last corner lunge down the inside of James Golding.

Her Kelly Racing team-mate Garry Jacobson was, however, cleared of wrongdoing in the incident which saw Macauley Jones turned into a concrete wall after the two rookies tangled while Jones was trying to pass De Silvestro’s Altima.

De Silvestro was found to have committed an act of careless driving when she dived down the inside of Golding as they battled over 18th position in the final corners of Race 6 of the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship.

The Swiss made contact with Golding which saw him swipe the outside wall and he crossed the line in 20th, having also lost a spot to Jacobson as he tried to gather up the Boost Mobile ZB Commodore.

While an already pending time penalty for Shane van Gisbergen saw De Silvestro’s Team Harvey Norman entry initially classified 17th, the five-second penalty put her back four positions and brought Golding up from a provisional 19th to 18th.

That wasn’t the only sanction handed out to the Nissan squad, which has also been stripped of 50 teams’ championship points after it was found in parc ferme that Rick Kelly’s #15 Castrol Racing entry did not have a Judicial Camera card installed, contravening Supercars sporting regulations.

That car is paired with the #7 Altima driven by Andre Heimgartner for the purposes of the teams’ championship and they remain eighth in those standings.

The one bright spot for the team from the post-race investigations was that Jacobson escaped sanction for the moment when Jones’ CoolDrive ZB Commodore went across the nose of the Rabble.Club Altima and shunted the concrete wall on the exit of Turn 13.

“In response to a request received from Tim Blanchard Racing Pty Ltd, an Incident at the exit of Turn 14 on Lap 3 when after contact with the rear of Car #21, Macauley Jones, by Car #3, Garry Jacobsen (sic), Car #21 collided with the wall causing the Safety Car to be deployed,” read the stewards summary.

“After a review of Broadcast and Judicial Camera footage from Cars #3 and #21, and having consulted the DSA, the DRD determined that no Driver was wholly or predominantly to blame for the Incident.”

Tim Slade was not referred to stewards by the Deputy Race Director despite an allegation from Walkinshaw Andretti United that the Brad Jones Racing driver made contact with James Courtney at the first corner of the race.

Van Gisbergen (Triple Eight Race Engineering) was issued a 15-second penalty during the race for careless driving when he locked up and bumped Fabian Coulthard’s Shell V-Power Racing Mustang off-course at Turn 13 on Lap 2 of the race.

The sanction meant that the #97 Red Bull HRT ZB Commodore was officially classified 22nd having taken the chequered flag in 13th, and leaves the 2016 champion languishing in 11th in the points.

Results: Race 6, Beaurepaires Melbourne 400 Updated