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Payne and De Pasquale made contact at Turn 4 on Lap 1 of the second race of the MSS Security Melbourne SuperSprint, sending the latter off into the Lakeside Stadium car park and ultimately out of the race with broken steering for the #11 Shell V-Power Mustang.
The Penrite Racing driver went on to finish third after 17 laps, although he too could have been back in the pits given the chunk which was taken out of his right-front wheel.
“I had two spokes missing out of my right-front wheel so I don’t even know how it held together,” he said.
“I can’t even really remember what happened, but I think I was on the outside at [Turn] 3 and I wasn’t really willing to give up my spot.
“He was sort of crowding me out so I sort of said, ‘Nah, I’m going to pitch it in here.’
“It’s kind of weird because we locked wheels and then the steering just completely came out of my hands and that’s why I ended up running so wide.
“It was a bit of a bit of a hard hit; I didn’t feel any damage after it but I was really lucky to make it home on that on that wheel I think.”
De Pasquale saw it slightly differently from his seat.
“It’s pretty disappointing,” he said on the broadcast.
“Obviously, pretty clean first couple of corners, then I just get driven into pretty hard and it breaks the steering straight away.
“So, there’s not really much we could do.”
Qualifying for Race 5 starts tomorrow at 09:00 local time/AEDT.
Update 18:59 AEDT
Stewards confirm incident reviewed, no driver wholly or predominately to blame, “noting both cars interlocked wheels.”
