Bathurst ‘balls-up’ still eats away at Kiwi driver

Scott McLaughlin says it still ‘‘kills’’ him to think of that infamous incident with 10 laps to go at Bathurst a fortnight ago.

The 23-year-old New Zealand driver was in the thick of one of the most talked about moments in the history of the race and insists Jamie Whincup was at fault.

The Supercars season moves to the Gold Coast this weekend, but all the talk remains about what happened towards the end of the Bathurst 1000, when McLaughlin crashed into Garth Tander after being taken Whincup.

Whincup’s Red Bull Racing team appealed against the 15-second penalty the driver received for the incident. It has kept Supercars in the headlines for the past two weeks but until now McLaughlin has stayed away from any comment as the category’s management and Red Bull Racing have fought out a war of words.

But speaking for the first time on it, apart from initial comments straight after the race, McLaughlin still insists Whincup was in the wrong for trying to overtake him at the Chase and out by Jamie remains bitterly disappointed that he was robbed of the chance of winning a career-defining race.

‘‘It was an absolute balls-up and an unfortunate set of circumstances,’’ McLaughlin said.

‘‘Obviously Whincup threw down a move that he thought was on and he still does. That’s fine and good but I disagree and we’re always going to disagree about it.

‘‘I’ve spoken to Jamie since then and I haven’t lost any respect for him over it. I’ve had some ripper battles with him in races and probably will continue to do so.

‘‘Over this unfortunately we’ve disagreed and my rejoin cost us a heap as well.

‘‘It still eats at me when I talk about it and it’s one that got away, but I’m more p ..... off that we never got a chance to see how we would have gone.’’

McLaughlin has gone over the incident countless times in his mind over the past two weeks and says he’s determined to learn lessons from it.

‘‘I’ve been dwelling on it and watched the replay about 150,000 times, but I like learning from the mistakes I’ve made and knowing what I could have done better.

‘‘Could I have blocked Jamie? Of course I could have blocked him harder, but in the moment when you’re going at 300km/h you’ve got to make those decisions in a split second.’’

The winner of this year’s Bathurst 1000 was only finally confirmed a couple of days ago, when Red Bull Racing’s protest was thrown out by the Supercars National Court of Appeal.

It has meant that Will Davison and Jonathan Webb’s celebrations were slightly muted in the aftermath of the race and McLaughlin said that was bad for Supercars.

‘‘It’s not good for the sport,’’ he said.