The failure that triggered critical Safety Car

A throttle linkage failure was behind David Reynolds being stranded on track early in Sunday’s race at Pukekohe, triggering the Safety Car that defined the race.

Reynolds endured a troubled Sunday at the ITM Auckland SuperSprint, beginning with a crash early in qualifying that left him starting 22nd.

It also spelt the end of his streak of 18 consecutive ARMOR ALL Top 10 Shootout appearances that stretched back to Hidden Valley 2017.

He charged during the opening 11 laps of the race, making it up to 10th - albeit assisted by the pitstop cycle.

That was as good as it got however, before disaster struck.

“It was a little bolt in the throttle linkage that fell out, so I just had no throttle,” he explained to Supercars Trackside.

“I could get it going again and literally just putt around [to the pits].

“I must've had like one-percent throttle or something, so that was enough to just crawl back to the garage and they fixed it.

“I was having fun before that, I was having a few good races with people, a few good dive-bombs.

“My car [on Sunday was] a lot better, so I would've liked to have started at the front and had a decent race.”

Reynolds returned to the track to score points for last place and retains sixth in the championship, 924 behind runaway leader Scott McLaughlin.

Penrite Racing’s difficult Sunday stretched to Reynolds' teammate Anton De Pasquale, who qualified 14th and finished 20th.

“I had contact on lap two or three and then the steering was pointing west and I just tried to keep it on the road for the rest of the race,” he said.

“It was never going to be a good afternoon, I sort of just tried to keep it on the road and collect some points, which ended up being 20th and that was it.”

Reynolds’ Sunday had started with a trophy; belatedly presented with the third-place Saturday silverware following Jamie Whincup’s post-race penalty that sent the Red Bull Holden driver back to sixth.

De Pasquale finished 15th on Saturday and sits 11th in the championship ahead of the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 on October 10-13.