Jamie Whincup may start the 2011 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 from the back of the grid if TeamVodafone can not repair his Commodore VE in time for qualifying this afternoon.
Whincup ran wide at the entry to The Cutting on his final lap of the 50 minute session before sliding into the outside wall. He finished the session second fastest behind SP Tools driver Shane van Gisbergen.
The incident has seen extensive internal damage sustained to the #88 Holden Commodore VE.
Whincup accepted blame for the incident.
“It was my mistake,” said Whincup.
“It’s a little bit worse than it looks unfortunately and see if we can get out for qualifying but it’s not looking too good.”
Team manager Adrian Burgess says that with just two hours before qualifying, it will be touch and go if the car is repaired in time.
“We’ll give it our best shot,” Burgess told Speedcafe.com.
“There’s a fair amount of damage and we’re still finding bits as we get into it. We’ll obviously make every effort we can to get it out there.
“We will only give him a safe car, though. There’s no point giving him a car that’s two or three seconds off the pace and pushing him back in the fence. We have to do it right.
“If we miss qualifying, we miss it, but we’re not trying to do that.
“I couldn’t say if we’ll make it or not. We’ve only had five minutes with the car, but it’s a lot of work.”
CLICK HERE for a full report and results from the final practice session.
The qualifying session will start at 1445 local time
