Shane van Gisbergen says he’s “confused” by the stewards’ decision to penalise him for a collision with Macauley Jones.
Van Gisbergen was on a hot lap when he came across a slower-moving Jones inside the dying minutes of Friday afternoon’s qualifying session for the Bathurst 1000.
He attempted to pass around the outside of the Essesand made contact with the right rear of Jones at the entry to the Dipper.
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Jones’ car was fired straight into the concrete wall, where it unsurprisingly sustained heavy damage.
Stewards hit the championship leader with a three-place grid penalty. It will be applied after the shootout on Saturday afternoon, meaning if he sets the quickest time in the shootout he will start fourth.
“I’m confused because he went really wide at turn one and lost almost a second to his lap before,” van Gisbergen told Wide World of Sports.
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“And then at the top, it looked like he was letting me go, so I committed down the hill.
“Then he came back to the line and I couldn’t stop and I crashed into him.”
Van Gisbergen said it was “a shame” to have ended the day with a crash and that he felt sorry for the BJR mechanics, but said Jones would have seen him coming.
He said data showed Jones upshifted on the way down the hill instead of downshifted, which stewards had put down to Jones “feeling flustered”.
”The contact is my fault,” van Gisbergen said.
“But what led to it … his lap was ruined at turn one.
“He’s seen a car catching him … he doesn’t have to pull out of my way because, like, he was still on a lap.
“But I thought in the moment he stuffed up turn one and then he was pulling over to let me go.
“I feel sorry for his guys that they have to fix the car.”
Team owner Brad Jones, Macauley’s father, said he didn’t know what van Gisbergen was thinking to make the move in the first place.
“You can’t fit two cars down through there anyway,” he told V8 Sleuth.
“He was never going to do a faster lap passing a car around the outside.
“I don’t know what he was thinking. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
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