It was reported on the broadcast that Richie Stanaway’s Mustang had its rear wheels spinning while up on the jacks during his second stop in Sunday’s race.
That would generally be a slam dunk penalty, however a post-race investigation into the matter led to no further action from the stewards.
The reason was that the brake lock mechanism itself had failed, rather than the driver failing to activate it – and given it’s a control part, it wasn’t deemed to be the fault of the team.
“After the race the stewards investigated an incident in the pit lane during car 26’s pit stop when the rear axles were seen to be rotating when the car was lifted preventing the mechanics from fitting the rear wheels,” read the stewards report.
“The driver had attempted to activate the brake lock mechanism but a report from Supercars Technical confirmed that the mechanism did not activate.
“This would have represented a breach of rule C11.4.2. However, because Supercars Technical’s investigation established that the non-activation of the mechanism was due to a malfunction of a control part to which neither the driver nor the team contributed, the stewards took no further action.”
The stewards also elected to leave the wild racing seen in the early stages of the race, including the lap 7 moment when both David Reynolds and Ryan Wood ended up off the road, unpunished.
“The available evidence indicated that the incident occurred after side to side contact occurred between car 2 and car 20 which slowed car 20,” read the report.
“As a consequence of car 20 slowing, car 1, Brodie Kostecki, and car 10, Nick Percat, which were behind car 20, both contacted the rear of car 20.
“There was no evidence which could establish that any driver was predominantly to blame for car 20 leaving the edge of the track.”
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