Championship leader fires up in Tassie
V8 Supercars Championship leader James Courtney accused rival Will Davison of looking like a fool in an explosive aftermath to the Tyrepower Tasmanian SuperSprint today.
The pair engaged in a heated confrontation after Davison, eyeing a potential podium finish, was spun on the first lap in a coming together between the two.
Davison charged into the Holden Racing Team garage to confront Courtney who he accused of taking him out, to which Courtney replied: "go and have a cry".
"We are racing hard, he has got a little fired up. I just told him to look at the footage and get back to me. He is probably regretting a few things he said now and looks like a fool," Courtney said.
"Emotions are high. People say things they don't mean. It's racing. It's done and dusted so he can keep crying. Everyone wants to see passion. If everybody saw us as robots and no-one said anything it would be pretty boring.
"I thought it was funny. I think that made him even angrier that I was laughing it off."
The part-exchange went like this - Davison: "I can't wait to be behind you next time" before Courtney responded: "Go look at the vision and come back and apologise". Courtney was later cleared by officials of any wrong doing.
Neither backed down after the clash as captured on camera as Erebus Motorsport's Davison continued the attack as he left the HRT headquarters.
"He's telling me to have a cry and I'll be right - the arrogance on the bloke's just pathetic, I feel sorry for him. So we were going to race clean and had a great start and I've been turfed," Davison said.
"I've got a fair idea of what happened, I mean, I seriously don't know what he was thinking. He's always just got to rub me up and he thinks it intimidates me but it's just a shame, it's just not what you want to see up the front.
"It's just a shame, it's not what you want for our guys, Betty, and it's a big deal for us - someone of his calibre, he's leading the Championship, and a move like that is - we'll see if he was drilled from behind but I doubt it. I think that'll be after he hit me."
Courtney replied: "I can understand his agro, but I just said, look mate have a look at the vision and come back and you're yelling at the wrong guy here. But I can understand he's upset, they've been struggling for pace and to have that happen is upsetting for him."
Craig Lowndes ran away with the first race in the meantime and Courtney finished third behind Pepsi Max Crew's Mark Winterbottom. He repeated the dose in the second race, continuing his team's complete dominance of the Tasmanian event in the last seven years.
Lowndes gave Red Bull Racing Australia four out of five ARMOR ALL Pole Positions for the season, Lowndes nabbing both today. At the same time he equalled Allan Moffat's 39 pole positions.
The veteran now sits on 99 races wins, the most decorated driver in Australian history, with the longer 84-lap race to come tomorrow.
With Davison having his great qualifying performance taken away from him, he still stayed on the lead lap, only ahead of cursed Volvo driver Scott McLaughlin.
For the second event running mechanical problems ended McLaughlin's race and he was back in the garage after just a couple of laps. "It just carked itself, story of my life at the moment," he said.
Marcos Ambrose's replacement Scott Pye was running in the top ten during qualifying but was shunted down in the order at the close, starting from 15th and 18th. He finished 17th in the first race and in the same spot in race two.
Team SuperBlack's young charge scored the rookie team's best qualifying position in the second of the two sessions having finished 11th in race one as the team starts to capture the car speed of their FG-X counterparts. It is Heimgartner's first weekend in the new Falcon.
The V8 Supercars will be on track for practice at 10.20am tomorrow, with qualifying and the 200km final race to unfold. Watch live on FOX SPORTS 506, or tune in for the highlights tomorrow afternoon.
Watch today's highlights at 8.30pm ADST on ONE, or catch the replay at 11.30pm on Ten this evening.
