“We had 200km to sort it out”

Fabian Coulthard was disappointed to end Sunday’s race on lap one after a strong start in Darwin.

The DJR Team Penske driver said after Saturday’s race he was hopeful ­­of a podium – but that went down the drain after running three wide with James Moffat and Chaz Mostert in the mid-pack in an outrageous opening lap.

The damage meant the Kiwi’s race was over and while on first inspection the team believed it would be fixable, it is difficult to judge until the car is back at the workshop.

“It’s not good for anybody – we had 200km to sort it out,” Coulthard told supercars.com. 

“Darwin is always renowned for crashing on the opening lap, it’s all about track position and doing the best you can.

“On the opening lap it’s pretty tight – there’s 25 guys as hungry as each other and sometimes that’s the end result.”

Coulthard warned that damage to the new gen Supercars could be deceiving and was unsure how much work would be involved for the team before the July 8-10 Castrol EDGE Townsville 400.

“A lot of it’s hopefully cosmetic, but once we pull things off does it get worse and worse?” Coulthard said. 

He explained his side of the incident.

“I got a good start and I was up to and next to Scotty [Pye, teammate] who started 11th by turn one,” he said.

“Chaz was in front of me and he sort of was wobbling on the outside of the track, maybe in the marbles or something.

“I got up next to him, I had to brake a couple of times … but we were three abreast through turn two, partly through three and it was Moff to the left of me who kept coming across … I was the meat in the sandwich, basically.”

Mostert was also disappointed with the accident and while he was able to get back out and score a handful of points, the Supercheap Auto racer finished the race 15 laps down.

“I just did the laps I needed to out there to get the points,” he said.

“It’s a credit the team for the work they did to get the car out there. They put a whole front end in that thing so to get it out there … and get some points, it could make the difference at the end of the year.”

Mostert wasn’t pleased, either, and explained the incident from his point of view.

“To be honest, I’ve only seen the replay once or twice.

“It’s pretty crazy out there, people going three wide. All I knew was there was Fabian on my left, I didn’t know there was two cars.

“I was trying to leave as much room to the right, we kept touching down the straight I couldn’t really work out why because I’m over the right at the track.

“I took the option of going across the dirt … for the right hander and I got back on there. I was just driving straight next to them and got a big whack in the rear.

“I look at the replay looks like Moffat and Fabs came together… it’s pretty crap but that’s it at the end of the day.”

Tune in tomorrow night for more from Coulthard on Inside Supercars on FOX SPORTS 506 at 7.30pm AEST.

His teammate Scott Pye’s race also ended early after what Pye suggested was contact from Erebus driver David Reynolds.