In what was the spiciest moment of an action-packed race, Bates ended up clean off the road down the straight after being hit twice by Hill.
The incident actually started at the last corner, where Bates made contact with Hill while passing him. Hill then retaliated by bumping Bates to the inside of the road, and then bumping him again to send him off the road.
That meant Bates fell back into the clutches of Hill’s Matt Stone Racing teammate Nick Percat, who sent the Supercheap Auto Camaro off the road again at Turn 2.
Hill was hit with a drive-through penalty for his actions, while Percat copped a 15-second time penalty.
Speaking to Speedcafe post-race, Hill admitted that he was upset with the initial contact from Bates at the last corner, but that he didn’t mean to run him off the road entirely.
“We were out of position, we’d have a bad pit stop and lost a lot of ground,” said Hill. “We shouldn’t have been back there to start with.
“The restart was pretty aggressive, there was all sorts of things going on, people getting moved left, right and centre.
“Zach leant on me pretty hard and I was upset with that, so I was, I guess, trying to tell him to back down on that one.
“I didn’t mean to knock him off. I have to go say sorry because we play paddle together and I still want a good teammate on the paddle court.”
Zach Bates is hit by BOTH MSR cars and he ends up off the road!
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Speedcafe then spoke to Bates after the apology from Hill, however, the debutant was still not pleased with his paddle partner.
“It’s not really on, to be honest,” he said. “If you’re having a bad day, no need to put it on me. He did the right thing, coming to chat to me. But it’s happened now, what do you do?”
For Bates it was an interesting insight into how the main game racing differs from Super2.
“The Super2 racing is hard, no doubt about it,” he explained. “But I feel like in main game, it’s a lot more forceful.
“In Super2 a guy might run you out of road, but he’s accidentally done it. But in main game, he’s doing it on purpose. That’s the difference.”
Bates ended up classified 21st for the race, a disappointing result given he sensationally qualified fifth and was comfortably running in the top 10 before a slow first stop put him back in the field.
“I dropped a spot off the start, Brodie [Kostecki] got a good start, and then the rain came and I was holding on for dear life,” he said.
“I had a couple of moments, but I think everyone would say the same thing.
“I came in, our stop was a little bit average, but it is what it is. And then the big moment on the main straight…
“There’s disappointment with the final result. When you’re hovering in the top 10 you want to stay there. And I think if everything had fallen into place, that was possible. But it just wasn’t our day.”
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