In this week’s Pirtek Poll, Speedcafe.com is asking if you think Mark Winterbottom’s punishment was enough for the incident with Will Brown at Pukekohe.
Race 28 of the Repco Supercars Championship at the ITM Auckland SuperSprint ignited debate for all sorts of reasons, with a dramatic penultimate encounter of the weekend.
At the centre of it was an incident between Team 18’s Winterbottom and Erebus Motorsport’s Brown.
The pair made contact at the fast Turn 9 kink, sending Brown off the road and into a heavy, side-on impact with the concrete wall at pit entry.
It caused a lengthy red flag with the wall in question needing to be repositioned, while Brown reported it was a 56 g impact.
While the #9 ZB Commodore was withdrawn from the event, Winterbottom copped a drive-through penalty, which he served later in the red-flag disrupted hit out before crossing the line 22nd.
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Erebus team boss Barry Ryan believes that penalty was not enough, saying the #18 driver “should lose his licence“.
Ryan’s comments stem from his inference that Winterbottom had retaliated to contact with Brown at an earlier, slower corner(s) of the race track, with the 2015 champion referring in a television interview to “the Turn 4 get hit, Turn 6 get hit, Turn 9 get hit.
The significance of the penalty was drawn into question.
At the 2019 Melbourne 400, Richie Stanaway was disqualified and fined $10,000 for a clash with Lee Holdsworth, a penalty the Kiwi considered “pretty harsh” at the time.
That incident was adjudicated as ‘dangerous driving’, which is worse than the ‘reckless driving’ label the Stewards pinged Winterbottom for, as per the report.
However, in the Stanaway case, footage of the incident suggested intent, which is what Winterbottom also implied based upon the retaliation suggestion.
One would believe such wording is a factor in the level of the penalty given.
The left-hander where the incident happened is a notorious point on the track and not one where two cars can easily go door handle to door handle.
David Reynolds and Fabian Coulthard both ended up in the fence at a similar spot in 2017 when they too failed to run side-by-side.
Notably, that incident also had the influence of a championship battle, with Coulthard attempting to keep rival Chaz Mostert behind him.
Two cars can in fact run side-by-side through that final sequence of corners at Pukekohe, as was proven by the Race 29-winning battle between Shane van Gisbergen and Cameron Waters.
All considered, did Winterbottom’s punishment fit the crime?
Cast your vote in this week’s Pirtek Poll.
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