CHAZ Mostert was a sitting duck from three-quarters of the way through the opening lap of the Friday Supercars race at Albert Park.
There was mystery as to why the Ford star tumbled down the order to eventually be classified 17th.
The cause? An incident which sparked him to visit Todd Hazelwood in the Erebus Motorsport tent after Race 2.
“Everyone is racing pretty aggressive out there,” Mostert told V8 Sleuth.
“Obviously we started back in ninth; with those guys, they race for big sheep stations.
“I don’t know exactly what happened. I went and saw Todd after the race and he said he had someone up him but man, I’m like ‘I’m on the inside as narrow as I could go and I just get punted up the rear and nearly go into the side of a DJR car’.
“It was about a second and a half or so of all four tyres locked, so I’m sure on this surface that was going to damage the tyres pretty bad.”
Walkinshaw Andretti United also reported significant damage to the exhaust of the #25 Mobil 1 Optus Mustang.
REPORT: Brown wins shortened Albert Park race
“Obviously you can pit and you can be out of the race, or you can kind of roll around,” Mostert continued.
“I tried to roll around and just drove to the grip level I had, which wasn’t very high, and I just tried not to blow a tyre.”
Another two qualifying sessions and two races are still to come, leaving time to turn his weekend around, although Mostert is already 83 points behind championship leader Will Brown.
“We have got to be up there. The two guys (Brown and Broc Feeney) that are in the championship at the moment are duking it out between leading it and changing orange numbers each weekend,” he said.
“They are the first two cars consistently on the road, so not only do we need to lift and try to make sure we nail qualifying, all the other guys need to get involved in that too to stop making it so easy for them.
“They’re dictating the races at the moment and we need to get in there and pressure them.
“It’s still early in the year. We just need to get through tomorrow and see if we can get some better starting positions away from some people that want to race very aggressive.”
Saturday track action begins with Supercars qualifying from 9am AEDT.
