That’s the word from the category’s Driving Standards Advisor Craig Baird, who has explained the rationale behind James Golding’s late-race penalty.
Golding was handed a five-second time penalty for contact with Cooper Murray that bumped the Erebus Camaro out of the lead with just under five laps remaining.
Contact between Golding’s left-front corner and Murray’s right-rear sent the latter into a half-spin and allowed Matt Payne to sneak past the pair of them.
Golding overhauled Payne on the final lap to take the chequered flag first but was third in the result following the application of the time penalty.
CONTACT CONTACT CONTACT 💥
MATT PAYNE TAKES THE LEAD!!!!!#RepcoSC #Supercars #Bathurst1000 pic.twitter.com/hF1B2dreQu
— Supercars (@supercars) October 12, 2025
A stewards summary confirmed Golding was officially done for “Careless Driving, departing from the Standard of a competent Driver.”
“The Stewards reviewed broadcast vision in conjunction with the DSA,” read the decision document.
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“The vision showed Car 31 behind Car 99 while approaching Turn 2. Car 31 was on the inside and was the overtaking Car.
“Car 31 did not have sufficient overlap at the turn-in point for Turn 2. There was collision between the Cars, forcing Car 99 wide at the Turn, resulting in Car 99 losing multiple positions and Car 31 gained an advantage.
“The Stewards consider this driving conduct amounts to a breach of the Rules and impose a penalty consistent with previous breaches of a similar nature.”
Front-on and onboard vision shown on the broadcast made the incident look marginal but, according to Baird, the helicopter shot was damning for Golding.
“Different angles showed different things, but the telling angle, which doesn’t distort like an onboard does sometimes, was the overhead with the chopper. It just didn’t lie,” he told the Supercars website.
“You could see how far back he came from, what his maximum overlap was, what his overlap was at the point of contact, and it was never sufficient.”
Golding told his team via radio immediately after the incident that Murray had turned in early, a point which Baird conceded may be true.
“You can say that Cooper turned in. Well, of course he turned in and from the overhead maybe a little bit early, but that’s motor racing,” he said.
“At the turn-in point, at no point was there sufficient overlap.”
The race-deciding penalty came in a season where Supercars has loosened the application of its racing rules.
“It was a shame it ended like that, but it wasn’t just a touch and they headed up the hill side by side,” Baird concluded.
“[It was] avoidable contact gained a lasting advantage. Otherwise, you’d just move everyone out of the road every time you came to a corner.”
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