CAM Waters feels he didn’t deserve the drive-through penalty that snuffed out any remaining chance of victory in the opening leg of the Adelaide 500.
The pole-sitting Monster Energy Mustang driver had an action-packed race, which he mostly controlled for the first half before an ill-timed Safety Car dropped him down the order.
Waters was seventh on a Safety Car restart with 26 laps remaining when he ran wide at Turn 4 while attempting to pass Macauley Jones.
The recovering Waters then had contact with Todd Hazelwood at Turn 5, which spun the Holden and resulted in a drive-through penalty, from which he recovered to just 13th.
A chaotic chain of events sees the bp ultimate Safety Car triggered for the third time in this race #RepcoSC pic.twitter.com/7JtqZFWV4r
— Supercars (@supercars) December 3, 2022
Reflecting on his race, Waters said: “It started good. I got a good start, led half the race, the car was an absolute jet.
“Obviously, the strategy stuff happened, we got that Safety Car in a two-lap window we didn’t want, which hurt us.
“The car was super speedy, so I wasn’t too fazed by that point.
“I obviously lunged Macauley and I don’t know which car it was, I think it was a Truck Assist car, decided to ‘turn in for what’ and left me no room.
“So, I got a drive-through for something I don’t think I deserved.”
Hazelwood bounced off the outside tyre wall and was collected by a luckless Will Brown, which resulted in damage to both Commodores.
Waters had a lucky escape earlier in the race when he clouted the Turn 11 tyre wall on the outlap from his first pit stop.
Although the right-side of the Mustang took a considerable hit, only cosmetic damage resulted and he retained the effective lead over Scott Pye.
WOW!! What a chaotic final sector for Waters and Pye!#RepcoSC pic.twitter.com/Zx2BD3OmTw
— Supercars (@supercars) December 3, 2022
“It was crazy how much marbles and dirt was off-line. If you went a little bit off-line you were in a world of hurt,” Waters said.
“It caught me off guard once at 11, but it was crazy.
“It was an intense race, 100 percent the whole way, it was pretty cool in that respect, but obviously very disappointing for us when we had a speedy car.”
