Both Ryan Wood and Cooper Murray suffered left-rear suspension failures during Race 2 at Wanneroo Raceway.
Wood’s failure was particularly noteworthy, given he was leading the race and looking set to score a second career victory.
There were some key similarities between the failures, with the weld-in for the rod-end failing on Wood’s car, while the rod-end bolt snapped on Murray’s car.
Both failures happened on the run to Turn 6, leading to the emergence of a theory as to the culprit for the failures – the drop-off on the exit of Turn 5.
Erebus CEO Barry Ryan told Speedcafe that was the likely source of the “shock”, although added that Murray was adamant he hadn’t run wide.
“It just broke the rod-end on the rear suspension arm,” Ryan explained.
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“Never seen it happen in 26 years, unless you have a crash. There’s obviously the drop-off on Turn 5 where you probably get the shock.
“I imagine there will be some investigation tonight about how we can make the drivers not run off…
“I’m not saying they run off, Cooper thinks he didn’t. But something has caused it, it doesn’t just happen.”
Walkinshaw Andretti United didn’t want to comment on Wood’s failure, although did confirm that rear suspension arms will be changed across both its cars tonight as a precaution.
WAU driver Chaz Mostert did comment on the matter, detailing that he was warned about Turn 5 after Wood’s failure, but didn’t think that was the issue.
“I don’t think so,” he said when asked if Turn 5 was the culprit.
“I got warned about it but then I was chasing Will Brown, and he was using every part of the kerb at [Turn] 5.
“So I just pretended I didn’t hear the radio call.”
Brown added: “If it was due to [Turn] 5 mine would have broken”.
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