Jones defends Turn 8, Tander calls for changes

Brad Jones has defended Adelaide's infamous Turn 8 sweeper after a spate of big accidents, with 2010 event winner Garth Tander calling for changes to "open up the margin of error."

Jaxon Evans was ruled out of Sunday's race after a big hit in Boost Mobile Qualifying, two days after Richie Stanaway, Cameron Hill and David Reynolds crashed.

Evans and Stanaway were both rubbed out after displaying concussion symptoms, with the latter replaced by Dale Wood and then Super2 champion across the course of the weekend.

All four crashes began with the drivers clipping the inside Armco barrier, and speaking after Sunday's session, Jones admitted drivers take the risk, and suffer the consequences.

Jones himself had a big crash in the early years of the event, when there were tyres at corner apex and exit.

"Back in my day, there were tyres on the outside of it, which tripped me up," the BJR team owner said on the broadcast.

"I made a mistake, I clipped the kerb on the inside, which is what all of these guys are doing.

"I don't know that you need to do anything, to tell you the truth. Motor racing's tricky, and that's a tricky corner. You take the risk, and sometimes when it goes wrong, you pay the price."

Supercars champion Tander is also no stranger to Turn 8, crashing heavily in 2004.

"I’d like, if we can in the future, to maybe look at a way to just open up the Armco, kerb to Armco gap," Tander said.

"So maybe open up that Armco if we could a little bit back. But we don't want to encourage race car drivers that are north of 200 km/h to jump a kerb.

"So we need to find a balance of moving that Armco back, maybe opening up the margin of error a little bit for the driver but also not encouraging the drivers that they’re going to go 15km/h faster there because they’re going to jump over a kerb.

"That’s the challenge. It’s been like this for quite some time, and maybe it is time after this weekend to revise and have another look. Clearly Motorsport Australia and Supercars will do that.

"If we can just give a little bit of that margin so you still do feel that kerb every time you turn in, you just feel that kerb. But if you get it six inches wrong, you’re not writing the race car off. Maybe we can find a happy balance there. That might be all we need to do."

Two-time Adelaide 500 winner Scott McLaughlin also weighed in, posting to social media that he "never quite understood" the inside guardrail and that a kerb "does enough."

Tander insisted the corner itself shouldn't change; rather, "open up the margin of error" to prevent major accidents: "Let’s not change the architecture of Turn 8, let’s not change the angle of approach, let’s not change the mid-corner speed, let’s not change the exit, because we love it.

"As a race car driver, when you get through there on a brand new tyre in qualifying and you know you’ve maximised the car — you don’t have a smile on your face, but you’re pretty happy with yourself. So don’t change that, but let’s just open up the margin of error a little bit."