MANAGEMENT from the three teams involved in the hearing which led to Triple Eight’s disqualification from the Saturday race in Newcastle have had their say on the matter.
Triple Eight dominated the 250km race yesterday, with Shane van Gisbergen leading a one-two.
However, Tickford Racing and Walkinshaw Andretti United lodged protests regarding the Brisbane team’s use of a secondary driver cooling system, and both van Gisbergen and Broc Feeney have since been excluded.
The team principals of Tickford and WAU stood firm when interviewed this morning.
“These things are always difficult but the rules are the rules and you play to the rules so I think they made the right call,” said Bruce Stewart of WAU.
“It clearly was a breach.”
His Tickford counterpart Tim Edwards elaborated: “There’s nothing grey about the rule, it’s black and white… it’s a very clear rule.
“It’s interesting that we have had no issues with driver comfort or temperature in the car at all, all four of our drivers are comfortable.
“We elected to continue with our previous system and not change the ChillOut system that they’ve used and it has caught them out.
“They have had to put a bandaid measure in to keep the drivers cool but unfortunately the rules are very clear about where you can and can’t actually put those cooling mediums in the car.
“Ultimately they have got the right to appeal, which they are doing and if I was in their shoes I would probably appeal as well because they don’t want to lose a one-two.
“I mean clearly I have my view that they should (be excluded) and the stewards have obviously made a decision that they think it’s very clear.
“Maybe they (Triple Eight) have got some angle that I don’t see but the rules are very clear; there’s no greyness, they’re very black and white.”
In confirming their intention to appeal, Triple Eight team manager Mark Dutton offered an explanation as to what had occurred.
“If you look at every single car up and down pitlane, not one single one of them matches the rulebook and that’s not because anyone is cheating, the rulebook has evolved because it had to come out before the cars were finished being built,” he said.
“So in the process there’s a lot of changes and we clarified multiple things this weekend.
“One of the first things we clarified was where rules contradict things that have been agreed this weekend at the event, if they contradict Div C of the handbook, what is the overruling, what is the bible.
“It was clearly told to us that what applies is what was discussed this weekend.
“So at the start of this weekend before the cars were on track, we rolled out of the truck with these helmet air cooling, not additional, you’re allowed to have helmet air cooling, but it was in a different location than what Div C said.
“Div C, which is the technical section of the rulebook, referred to a specification document which also hasn’t been issued.
“If you try to follow the links to say the specification document says it should be in this volume, that drawing hasn’t been submitted to teams so we don’t actually have access to that so the rulebook has a link to something that doesn’t exist, so a little bit ambiguous.
“Either way, on Thursday, the set-up day, I grabbed the HoM (Supercars head of motorsport Adrian Burgess), went to the car and we went through the cooling of the car, different ducting locations, different changes to ducts and at the time we went through ‘we’ve put the helmet cooling air here’, went through the reasons for it: a) packaging, b) it’s not above the exhaust et cetera.
“This was quite an in-depth conversation at which point everything was fine and it was told it was a good idea that will help Shane (van Gisbergen), it will not only cool his head but it will help him keep a cool head.
“Where my mistake was, was I didn’t follow that up with an email.
“Not that you have to, you don’t have to… did I say the words, ‘do I have approval for this?’ No I didn’t.
“The fact that the HoM saw the box installed in the car, said it was a good idea, you can probably understand why I thought that was as good as approval.”
Triple Eight has however made a change to ensure it is complaint for Sunday’s action.
“We’re trying to run it in the other location so we’re feverishly welding up the car because now it has been clarified that we don’t have approval to run it there,” Dutton added.
“Of course we’re not going to be pigheaded and run it now that we know they’re not happy for us to run it.”
