McLaughlin crashes out before race start

After taking out the first four races of the season, Scott McLaughlin’s Supercars rivals finally found a way to stop him winning — by taking him out before the race even started.

McLaughlin was forced to sit out race five in bizarre circumstances last night after Cam Waters collided with him on the out lap from pitlane. Heavy damage from the clash put both cars out of the race.

The Kiwi champion was on pole and would have been favoured to continue his winning run in the Melbourne F1 support races.

Instead, he had to watch Chaz Mostert claim victory, while secondplaced Jamie Whincup cut his overall lead from 116 points to 24.

A furious McLaughlin demanded an apology from Waters.

“Those guys come out blazing all the time. I understand they need to get to the grid, but I just had no idea he was there, so I just was doing my normal thing and then all of a sudden, whack,” said McLaughlin.

“I had slowed down a fair bit before and then it all happened, so I haven’t seen the vision on his car but for the moment where I stand, I am expecting an apology.

“Sorry to everyone out there. There are worse things going on in the world but we will come back [today] and be stronger.”

Waters felt, at least initially, that he wasn’t completely to blame.

“I was passing a few guys, and out of [turn] five, I stayed hard right to try and pass Scotty. I thought he’d seen me, and he went hard left, I went to go and he went hard right,” said Waters.

“You don’t know where else to go, so I’m not taking the full responsibility, but that just shouldn’t happen.”

After the race, pundits assigned blame for the mishap to Waters.

McLaughlin had earlier underlined his dominance with his fourth straight win of the season in Melbourne yesterday afternoon.

Taking ludicrous DNS situations out of the equation, no one else in the field looks ready to challenge the Kiwi champion on a regular basis.

Although his lead was slashed last night, if he continues to amass points early on, the chasing pack will find it difficult to stay in contention.