Bright confident of Sunday start

Jason Bright is confident he will be back on the grid tomorrow after a race-stopping accident early at the ITM Auckland SuperSprint.

The Team BOC driver was nudged off the road onto wet grass by Chris Pither, and speared into the pit lane wall, wedged at the lane’s entry and drawing the red flag on lap three of the 100km sprint.

Brad Jones Racing is working hurriedly on the car and while it won’t make it out for this afternoon’s second race, Bright says they will be ready for Sunday’s sprints.

“Today won’t be possible,” Bright told supercars.com.

“They’ll give it a good crack to get it out there for qualifying and the races tomorrow.”

While there is significant damage, it is not believed to be at the extent of Fabian Coulthard’s on the Gold Coast a fortnight ago, or Craig Lowndes’ at the same track last year. Both were able to be repaired overnight.

“The first thing was to get it all stripped, then we can see how much damage there is,” Bright said. 

“There is a fair bit of damage, a lot of the components, because it was such a big hit it will need to be replaced anyway. It’s broken all the engine mount bolts as well, so it’s not just the rear unfortunately.

“They’ll get it all apart, get the parts repaired and start getting it back together. They’re already a fair way into getting it apart.”

After seeing the replays, Bright didn’t feel any different about the incident, which cost Chris Pither a drive-through penalty.

Meanwhile Dale Wood is working with his Nissan team to repair his car, after an accident with James Moffat and contact with team boss Todd Kelly in the 100km race.

“It’s all just superficial – front bar and bonnet, front guard, and then all the panels. It didn’t touch the radiator, so from the radiator back it’s fine… so it’s minimal, it just looks bad,” team boss Scott Sinclair told supercars.com.

“The good thing about this arvo is it is reset, we’ll start from where we qualified [18th] and pretend it didn’t happen, basically.”