Jamie Whincup is ‘pretty confident’ he will return for qualifying after suffering damage to his Triple Eight Holden in an unfortunate crash during Practice 5 at Mount Panorama.
Whincup came across Stanaway broadside on the road, which resulted in the Triple Eight driver finding the wall on driver’s left after he had scrubbed off speed to avoid the #33 Garry Rogers Motorsport entry.
After emerging from the impact unscathed, Whincup admitted that its was just a case of ‘wrong place and wrong time’.
A quick assessment of the damage has the 36-year-old confident his team can repair the car in time for Armor All Qualifying this afternoon.
“Yeah, wrong spot wrong time,” said Whincup, who ended the session in 17th position.
“I saw Richie go in as soon as I’ve come over Skyline and if you look at it on TV it all looks pretty flat there but it’s massively downhill.
“I just tried to scrub off as much speed as I possibly could while going around him and going around means you end up in the marbles too.
“It hit the wall, not massive, I’ve had a lot worse, but smashed the front-left corner.
“(The) rear’s got the camber knocked off it but hopefully it’s not transaxle or anything like that.
“Pretty confident we’ll be out for quali.
“I just tried to get as much info as quickly as we can so we can start preparing.
“(There is a) broken front upright, front wishbone, trailing arm. No fluid anywhere so radiator looks intact, front splitter is smashed across and it just looks like a rear trailing arm at the back as well.
“Gearbox seems fine.”
Stanaway escaped his car under his own power although the extent of the damage is unknown at this stage.
Qualifying for the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 is scheduled for 1600 local time/AEDT.
UPDATE: It has subsequently been confirmed that Car #888 will make this afternoon’s qualifying session.
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