Managing traffic during qualifying remains a hot topic among teams heading into today’s Coates Hire Ipswich Super Sprint.
The issue was thrust into the spotlight during Saturday’s 15 minute session following an incident involving DJR Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin and Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport’s Alex Davison.
McLaughlin, running out of sync to the rest of the field, rounded up several cars conducting out laps on his flying lap before he appeared to be baulked by Davison at Turn 4.
Stewards investigated the incident before deciding against issuing penalty after deeming Davison was not predominately to blame.
Navigating traffic has been made even more challenging this weekend with 30 cars sharing the 3.12km Queensland Raceway.
However, McLaughlin feels the onus is on the teams to maintain contact with drivers to avoid a repeat of such blocking incidents.
“I can understand the first sort of guys wouldn’t be expecting one car to be on a flyer, I was virtually the only one in some ways, but I think it’s probably more the team’s part to be more practice with all that sort of stuff,” said McLaughlin.
“Most of those guys, out of turn two into three, got out of the way.
“Then it was one dude or a couple other guys when I got around later in the lap, like I said, I was surprised.
“It would have been on TV, they would have had an idea I was coming.
“It’s just one little radio notification. It’s more the team’s behalf to take that onboard.”
Red Bull Holden’s Shane van Gisbergen says communication on out laps during qualifying is something Triple Eight is well versed in.
“All my outlaps, Shippy (engineer Grant McPherson) is telling me what’s happening, who’s got headlights on, who’s starting a lap, finishing one,” said van Gisbergen.
“You just need detail. My team looks after me, and I think everyone else does here but some other teams maybe need to get better.”
Meanwhile, Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport is calling for consistency from the stewards after they felt officials missed several similar incidents, but chose only to investigate the one involving Davison and McLaughlin.
Davison’s engineer Michael Stewart confirmed to Speedcafe.com that his driver was on a flying lap before having to back off after being baulked by traffic just seconds before McLaughlin reached the Holden.
He also affirmed that Davison was warned about traffic.
“From what we understand you try and get out of car’s way if you’re on a fast lap. That didn’t happen,” Stewart told Speedcafe.com.
“We saw four cars not do that for Alex.
“Alex tried to pass as many as he could before realistically he was forced to bail out of his lap and I can understand his frustration as well.
“But we didn’t hear anything of those four and unfortunately after passing some of those cars somebody’s come up behind him who was caught in the same boat.
“There was an investigation that came to nothing but there were four drivers that weren’t investigated.
“This is happening everywhere and it seems to be a bit of punching down going on.
“Alex was told there’s going to be traffic. You realistically try and get your lap but the reality is that many cars on a short lap, so there’s going to be traffic.
“Alex eventually had to bail out of his, and that’s as much as duty of care for the other cars that he was trying to go past.
“The same thing’s happened with Scotty and things are seen slightly different. In the end it is the same scenario.”
Qualifying for Race 16 is set to take place at 1140 local time.
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