TRIPLE Eight stars Shane van Gisbergen and Broc Feeney have been sensationally stripped of their 1-2 finish in the opening race of the Newcastle 500.
Stewards last night heard a protest against the two Red Bull Camaros for an alleged breach of driver cooling regulations and reconvened to reach their decision this morning.
The decision elevates Cam Waters to victory ahead of Chaz Mostert and Brodie Kostecki. Triple Eight is expected to appeal the decision.
The case centred around Triple Eight’s use of a driver cooling system in the driver’s side of its cars, breaching rules that stipulate such units are in a designated area in the passenger side.
Crew members were seen topping up a dry ice box in the driver’s side of the Triple Eight cars during pitstops in the race.
While Triple Eight did not dispute that it ran the system, it claimed that permission to do so had on Thursday been granted by Supercars’ Head of Motorsport Adrian Burgess.
Burgess claimed that was not the case. Stewards ruled that permission was not granted and that a misunderstanding between Burgess and Triple Eight manager Mark Dutton had occurred.
The stewards noted the penalty was harsh but necessary.
“The Stewards have carefully considered the penalty to be applied,” it read.
“The Stewards are guided by that as well as the generally accepted principle in motor racing, that the penalty for a breach of a technical regulation is disqualification.
“While on its face it is a harsh penalty, it is the appropriate penalty to be applied and the Stewards do so.
“It is important to record that the Stewards find that there was no intention on the part of the Respondent to compete with a non-compliant Car and that it was an honest, though mistaken, belief that it had the permission of the HOM to install the systems in issue.
“Despite the honest, though mistaken belief, the breach has still occurred, and the penalty is both required and appropriate.”
