Chaz Mostert has described the move late in Race 2 at the Thrifty Newcastle 500 that cost him the lead as “a little bit cheeky” while Ryan Walkinshaw has called it a “classic Shane move”.
The new Repco Supercars Championship leader was being caught by Shane van Gisbergen, who’d won yesterday’s season opening race before being disqualified for a technical infringement, in the closing stages of the race.
At Turn 9, van Gisbergen – who was on 12-lap fresher tyres – put the nose of the #97 Red Bull Ampol Racing on the outside of Mostert’s Mobil 1 Optus Mustang, with Mostert clashing with the Camaro as he brought the Mustang back onto the racing line.
The move unsettled Mostert, bumping him off-line, enabling van Gisbergen to switch back up the inside.
“Yeah, look at it’s obviously the smallest amount of overlap there,” Mostert said post-race. “But these cars are quite hard to see. But if it was me in that position, I probably would have got out of it a little bit earlier and started to turn in, but anyway, it is what it is.
“Obviously they’re looking at it; I’m not even sure, but it’s cheeky, but I’m sure he probably would have got me anyway, but I would at least like to have a crack to defend.”
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The contact didn’t end there, as the pair headed towards the Turn 11 hairpin. With van Gisbergen ahead, Mostert put the Mustang’s nose into the rear bumper of van Gisbergen – almost the same move with the cars the opposite way around – yet Mostert lacked the grip and snapped into oversteer on the way out of the corner while van Gisbergen recovered to stay ahead – and win the race by 4.49s.
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