Scott Pye feels an opportunity was “wasted” to potentially be in the top five in the final leg of the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500.
The Team 18 driver finished Supercars Championship Race 32 on Sunday in 12th after slipping from the top 10.
Earlier in the day, the #20 Alspec Racing ZB Commodore had progressed through to the Top 10 Shootout and started fifth for the 250km encounter.
In the late stages of the race, Pye — who was running ninth — was unloaded into the tyre wall on drivers’ right by Will Brown at Turn 15.
Brown was dished a 15-second penalty for a driving infringement while Pye already had the same sanction hanging over his head for a Safety Car restart infringement.
It saw Brown ahead of Pye in the final classification, in 11th and 12th, respectively.
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“[Sunday] was a bit of a disaster for us,” lamented Pye.
“We made the shootout and finished up fifth in that which was great, but then we had a run of errors during the race which put us back, so we finished [12th] after being spun out at the very end of the race.
“We had a very fast car so we’ll go back and analyse what we did because if we did a better job [on Sunday] we could have been in the top five to a podium.
“Really disappointed that we wasted it, but we’ll regroup and have a long chat about this one and we will come back for my home event at Adelaide.”
On the other side of the Team 18 garage, Mark Winterbottom elevated himself from 12th on the grid to sixth at the chequered flag.
“We finished and survived which was great,” said Winterbottom.
“There was so much carnage [on Sunday], Qualifying is so key and my kerb strike put me into 12th which was average.
“I made a mega start, worked my way back up and had really good pace.
“I was passing cars and coming through even until the last couple of laps with Cam [Waters] to get sixth.
“A solid day, to move from 12th to sixth was great. The car is straight, a couple of doors will get changed and a few stickers and then we go for one more in Adelaide.
“We scored a good bag of points and we made positions, so all in all it was a good day.”
