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Triple Eight Team Manager Mark Dutton has outlined the likely cause of the crash which Shane van Gisbergen experienced in the Queensland Raceway pre-enduro Supercars test day.
The two-time Bathurst 1000 winner was heavily into the Turn 6 tyre wall when the #97 Red Bull Ampol Racing (RBAR) Camaro lost its front brakes during the first 90 minutes of the morning.
According to Dutton, the brakes had just been changed on Car #97, and a caliper looks to have come loose.
“Everything started smoothly and we were running through our test plan,” he recounted.
“Part of that was changing brakes; you bed brakes at these days, pre-event.
“What it looks like has happened is, one of the fittings has been knocked on the caliper and then that’s subsequently come loose.
“So Shane, entering Turn 6, has the driver’s worst nightmare when the pedal goes to the floor.
“[He had] literally no front brakes, tries to slow it down, does a 360 through the gravel, washing off as much speed as he can, and then managed to put it in perfectly square.”
Despite it being believed initially that the car would have to go back to Triple Eight Race Engineering’s Banyo workshop, in Brisbane’s north, it was repaired at the circuit and co-driver Richie Stanaway was able to hop back in for some more miles in the final two-and-a-half hours of the afternoon.
“That’s a big deal [hitting the tyres square] because that means that the force of the impact is shared equally on the car, so that that’s why we’ve been able to fix it,” added Dutton.
“The car has performed magnificently; we actually didn’t think we would be able to get it back out when we saw how deep it was buried in the tyres, and the crew obviously worked tirelessly to get it going.
“We were pleasantly surprised that the chassis rails weren’t damaged, the front clip wasn’t damaged… It was all your bolt-on and -off bits that you could easily replace.”
Van Gisbergen was not seriously injured in the incident, although he will be checked over by a physiotherapist tomorrow.
“Like anything like this, he’ll be more sore tomorrow, so we’ll get him to the physios, get him checked out there,” said Dutton.
“Then we’ll have a physio anyway at the enduros, so Dolph [Francis, Triple Eight physiotherapist] will make sure that he is in tip-top condition.”
Stanaway remarked, “The main thing is that [van Gisbergen] is okay because it was a pretty big impact.
“We had a lot on the programme today, so not being able to get the full testing because of the incident definitely wasn’t the best lead into Sandown.
“Luckily, the team did manage to turn the car around to get some laps in this afternoon which was really productive, so a big kudos to them.
“The laps in the end were so valuable, which made it worthwhile for everyone.
“It’s been good to drive it again with proximity to the race, compared to the test days which were earlier in the year.”
All three Triple Eight cars were in action at Queensland Raceway, including the #88 RBAR and the #888 Supercheap Auto wildcard, as were the three Dick Johnson Racing Mustangs (including its wildcard entry), both Matt Stone Racing Camaros, and both PremiAir Racing Camaros.
Erebus Motorsport, Walkinshaw Andretti United, Tickford Racing, and Grove Racing completed a test day at Winton, while Brad Jones Racing, Team 18, and the Blanchard Racing Team will return tomorrow after calling off their programme today due to the threat of wet weather.
