Mostert: We can't afford bad days in title chase
Chaz Mostert "just can’t have those days" in championship hunt
WAU star now 279 points behind Will Brown after Darwin
Mostert 16th in Darwin finale after starting 20th, bungled stop
Chaz Mostert admits he can't afford more bad days if he's to challenge Will Brown and Broc Feeney for the championship, following another costly race in Darwin.
Mostert slumped to 20th in Boost Mobile Qualifying, but unlike Saturday, was unable to mount a spirited charge through the field thanks to a botched pit stop.
A cross-threaded nut in the pit stop cost Mostert a few positions, which put him back further than anticipated.
Having initially been in the fight for a top 10 position, Mostert dropped down to as low as 22nd and eventually fought back to 16th, albeit a far cry from his stunning 22nd-to-fifth charge on Saturday.
While Mostert and Walkinshaw Andretti United battled on the Super Soft tyre from the get-go, Triple Eight star Feeney claimed his fourth and fifth wins of the season, while teammate Brown made it 11 podiums in 12 starts.
Critically, Mostert lost 104 points to championship leader Brown over the course of the weekend, while Feeney out-scored Mostert by 132 points.
"Yeah, just different tyre, different place, heat and just the car just didn't quite work on it this weekend. Race car was still pretty good,” said Mostert, who had already lost points due to incidents in Melbourne and a loose wheel in New Zealand.
"We had a pretty bungled stop there, which probably took away a chance of just sneaking into the 10.
"So yeah, just can’t have those days. The guys were racing in the championship, they're just not having bad days. We’ve just got to go back to the drawing board."
Mostert made headlines on Saturday with his stunning charge through the field, but the two-time Bathurst winner felt WAU went backwards on set-up on his car, further stunting his progress on Sunday.
"Yeah, we tuned the car up a little bit more and I think we probably made it slightly worse. Ryan's [Wood] car was probably a lot like the car yesterday and he looked quite speedy at the start,” Mostert said.
"But everyone knew that everyone would come out better today and, yes, we took a big gain yesterday. Unfortunately we didn’t capitalise on it today.
"It would’ve been really great to get another top 10, but today just wasn't meant to be."
Mostert is 279 points behind Brown heading to the NTI Townsville 500 on July 5-7.
