McLaughlin says action ‘ridiculous’
SCOTT McLaughlin has urged Supercars stewards to prevent backmarkers from deciding the championship after his stellar drive to victory yesterday involved several unwelcome hurdles.
As per Supercars rules, drivers who are about to be lapped by the leaders are supposed to be waved blue flags as a prompter to let the frontrunners past.
McLaughlin was held up on several occasions in that scenario yesterday while trying to hold off Triple Eight rival Jamie Whincup and on one occasion was seen furiously gesturing when stuck behind Garth Tander.
“It was ridiculous,” McLaughlin said.
“I didn’t see one blue flag out there the whole time … I don’t expect them (the drivers) to get out of the way but I expect the stewards to obviously see the battle and release the blue flags.
“I didn’t see one.” Asked if similar situations could make a difference in a championship where three drivers are split by only 27 points, the 24-year-old agreed.
“It sometimes ruins the race … as a category I think we should be better at it,” he said.
Nothing, however, could stop McLaughlin, who appeared a long shot to win the race when his co-driver Alex Premat started in 13th.
Premat made up eight places in an excellent opening stint before a bold strategy call allowed McLaughlin to sneak past all three Triple Eight cars and into the lead.
The Kiwi ace delighted the crowd with some celebratory burnouts before having to push his out-of-fuel car down pit lane.
“I will push it to victory lane any time,” he smiled.
Second place for Whincup was enough to put him atop the championship standings for the first time this year, 17 points ahead of Fabian Coulthard and 27 in front of McLaughlin.
Whincup, though, admitted to having “mixed feelings” after losing out on strategy and encouraged his team to be more aggressive in the final two rounds at Pukekohe and Newcastle.
“We were just a bit conservative. We finished with too much fuel and stayed out a little bit too long (before) pitting at the end,” he said.
“These boys (McLaughlin and Premat) just took a bit more of a risk and got the reward for it.”
Whincup finished just ahead of teammate Shane van Gisbergen, whose co-driver Matt Campbell was jumped off the line by the No.88.
Ninth place for Coulthard meant he lost the series lead, having entered the round with a 91-point advantage. Chaz Mostert and Steve Owen sealed the Enduro Cup with seventh place.
Prodrive teammates Cameron Waters and Richie Stanaway had been well-placed to challenge for the silverware until the latter’s attempted pass on Steven Richards resulted in steering damage.
The pair finished two laps down in 21st.
The 300km race had some early casualties as a handful of co-drivers blotted their copybooks.
Dean Fiore was slapped with a drive-through penalty for spinning Saturday podium finisher Andre Heimgartner – the co-driver for Gold Coaster Tim Slade – into the Turn 11 wall.
The incident put the Slade/ Heimgartner entry out of contention. Bathurst champions David Reynolds and Luke Youlden were also ruled out of the running after the latter walloped the wall exiting the beach chicane.
The next round in Pukekohe, near Auckland, will be held on November 3-5.