Stewards have fined Alex Rullo $10,000 and excluded the rookie from qualifying for dangerous driving after he impeded Garth Tander during the session at Darwin.
The Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport driver filed out of pit lane behind a train of cars before weaving into the fast lane in front of the fast approaching Tander who was finishing a hot lap.
As a result, Tander was forced to take avoiding action to prevent high speed contact with the rear of the 17-year-old’s Commodore.
A stewards report has confirmed that Rullo will start this afternoon’s Race 12 from pit lane while $5,000 of the fine has been suspended until the end of the year.
“Alex Rullo admitted the Charge of Dangerous Driving in breach of Schedule B2 Article 2.1.3,” read the report.
“After viewing footage from the telecast and incar footage from Cars #33 and #62, the Stewards imposed a Penalty that Car #62, Alex Rullo, be excluded form Qualifying and start Race 12 from Pit Lane and a Fine of $10,000 of which $5,000 is suspended until 31st Dec 2017.”
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Rullo accepted the blame for the near miss having admitted he failed to check his mirrors when exiting pit lane.
The Supercars rookie, who secured his full Superlicence after turning 17 this weekend, has since apologised to Tander.
“Obviously when these things happen they (the stewards) have a job to impose a penalty,” said Rullo.
“Starting from the back of the grid wouldn’t have affected us too much even though that is what would normally have happened.
“Starting from pit lane won’t be too bad.
“Obviously I have got to incur a penalty to make sure these things don’t happen again and I have definitely learned my lesson from it.
“I went straight down to see Garth after I got my debrief done and apologised to him. He was a bit pissed off but rightly so, I would be too. I apologised to him and he accepted it.”
A delay in radio communication from the team to Rullo to warn him of traffic contributed to the error.
Team owner Lucas Dumbrell said his organisation had to shoulder some of the responsibility for the mistake.
“Really it was our fault as a team that we didn’t tell him that Garth was on a hot lap,” said Dumbrell.
“It’s the team’s role to make Alex’s job as easy as possible and we let him down by not communicating it to him.”
Race 12 is scheduled to start at 1330 local time.
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