Lightning strikes twice for Mostert
After a difficult and somewhat controversial Bathurst 1000 Chaz Mostert was keen to make amends in the No.55 Mustang at the Gold Coast 600. It was the second endurance round and Chaz was sharing the duties again with co-driver James Moffat around the tight 9 corner Surface Paradise Street Circuit. With concrete walls surrounding what are normally pubic roads there is very little room for error when driving flat out in Supercar.
Chaz and James posted the second quickest laps of the first two sessions of Friday, and finished Practice 3 sixth overall posting a time of 1m10.29s. Chaz reported “It was a pretty good day for us, good to be in the top two in the first two sessions, and I didn’t quite get the lap together in Practice 3, but it is what it is. We didn’t do too much to the car today and the car had pace, so we’ll see what else we can pull from the Supercheap Auto wagon tonight and go again tomorrow.”
Come Saturday Chaz snatched provisional ARMOR ALL Pole Position for the Gold Coast 600 qualifying session jumping to the top on his last run with a 1:10.4279s. “It was a tough session, so tight out there, I was really happy to get that last lap in,” Chaz said. “I left nothing on the table, probably millimetres away from triggering kerb hop sensors, but that’s what it takes around here”
The last man out in the Shootout after topping regular qualifying, Mostert tagged the inside wall at Turn 11, firing him hard into the outside concrete with disastrous consequences. After an assessment in the team garage, Tickford Racing CEO Tim Edwards confirmed the car will not only miss the remainder of the weekend, but not race again.
“The chassis is a write-off,” said Edwards. "It's punched the chassis rail back through the firewall. “The engine is not even connected to the car anymore, it’s sheared the engine off and shoved it backwards through the car. “The chassis is a complete write-off, as is most of the stuff that’s bolted to it.”
Speaking after being cleared from the trackside medical centre, Mostert described himself “super gutted” about the accident. “I just made the smallest mistake and it bites you,” said Mostert, who had won the Saturday race on the Gold Coast in each of the last two years. “There’s no excuse. We were nowhere in the middle sector, I shouldn’t have really made that mistake, but I just really struggled with the feel of the car under me to start with.”
Moving down to 6th position on 2447 points in the championship, Mostert will now have to back himself after two very difficult rounds and focus on the next endurance race at the Sandown 500 on the 8th- 10th of November.
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