TRIPLE Eight has worked some magic to get its #97 Red Bull Ampol Camaro back in action after a huge testing crash this morning.
The team had at one stage accepted the car would need to be sent back to base at Banyo after a brake failure sent Shane van Gisbergen spinning at high-speed into the Turn 6 wall at Queensland Raceway.
However, it changed course to conduct repairs in the QR garage – successfully completing the mission when Richie Stanaway rolled out of the pits at 2:29pm local time. Van Gisbergen had crashed at approximately 9:45am.
GALLERY: Van Gisbergen’s QR crash
“With how hard he went in, we thought the car was done for the day,” Triple Eight team manager Mark Dutton told V8 Sleuth.
“We put it in the truck, A) because we thought it was done, B) because of the huge crowd, and C) actually so we could use the truck as a bit of a hoist to have it up at the top level and then we all went underneath and inspected the chassis to see how far back the damage went.
“We were pleasantly surprised when it was all the sacrificial components that had taken the brunt of it.
“The chassis looked perfect, even the front clip looked fine, it was just all of the rail extensions and bodywork, radiators and all that sort of stuff.”
Stanaway is due to complete the remainder of the day’s running, with van Gisbergen sore.
Dutton explained the catalyst behind the brake failure when asked if the incident was cause for concern.
“There’s always reason to be concerned when you have that, but we could identify it and try to isolate exactly what the cause was,” he said.
“We had been doing some brake changes in the garage and the most logical thing is that the fitting has been knocked… because it’s a 90-degree fitting, if you knock it in an anti-clockwise direction, you can crack it off effectively.
“That’s what it appears to be, because all of those fittings were checked this morning by the guys.
“They were fine first thing and then we were just running through our sequence, doing some of the brake change and it looks like it has possibly copped a bit of a knock.”
