The pair’s Holden Colorado struck a tree in this morning’s session, tipping it on its side and extensively damaging the rear suspension.
“It’s really, really disappointing,” said Lowndes.
“We started today really well, but about 12 kilometres from the end of the first stage, I got the rear wheel stuck in a rut and unfortunately there was a tree waiting around the corner.
“We were only in second gear, but we clipped the tree with the rear wheel and it tipped us on our side. We assessed the damage and tried to continue, but we had to get towed out for the last 12kms.”
The accident means Lowndes and Panozzo, who were leading the event by a comfortable 30 minutes, now sit a distant seventh in the standings.
“It’s not looking good for us to win it now,” Lowndes said .
“It’s really disappointing. We had 29 minutes up our sleeves, and I think at the point of the accident we’d probably picked up another eight minutes. So it’s really disappointing, but that’s motorsport.
“We want to finish though, we’ll repair the car and who knows, the way all the cars are going, potentially we could still end up on the podium, so we’ll keep our fingers crossed and see what happens in the next couple of days.”
Check out the video from the leg including an interview with Craig Lowndes
