Stanaway aggrieved over Fullwood Perth run-in

Richie Stanaway raised his frustration with Bryce Fullwood following Sunday’s Perth race, questioning the Brad Jones Racing driver’s sportsmanship.

Stanaway came home 14th behind Fullwood’s teammates Andre Heimgartner, Jaxon Evans and Macauley Jones, who finished 10th, 12th and 13th respectively.

The PremiAir Racing driver alleged he was held up by Fullwood, who was a lap down in the closing stages following an earlier off.

Unable to clear Fullwood, and with blue flags — or a lack thereof — not helping his cause, Stanaway was unable to make headway on the top 10.

In a PremiAir release, Stanaway said he caught up with Fullwood in pit lane after the race, questioning the BJR driver why he “didn’t get out of the way."

“It was frustrating too out there with Bryce being a lap down between me and his teammates and wouldn’t get out of the way,” Stanaway said.

"I asked him why he didn’t get out of the way being a lap down. They didn’t put the blue flags out and I am not sure why that happened, but they shouldn’t really have to, it is not great sportsmanship to just sit there.

"I used up so much tyre to get by Bryce and I shouldn’t have to do that when he is a lap down, I was trying to get to Macauley, I wasn’t worried about Jaxon as he had tyres on, but yeah, that was just frustrating.”

It was a tough footnote on what looked like a promising day for Fullwood, who after reaching the Boost Mobile Top Ten Shootout, ran off the road at Turn 6.

"Really tough end to our weekend here in Perth, which has otherwise been quite positive,” Fullwood said.

"Was really cool to qualify fifth into the Shootout. We started all the races from ninth this weekend, which was inside the 10 and that was really good for us.

"Unfortunately made a mistake in the race. Put us way out of contention of any of any kind of results.

"Really sorry to all the boys who worked really hard this weekend, but excited that we've got some speed and looking forward to Darwin.”

It was also another sour moment for PremiAir, which saw James Golding in the headlines following high-profile clashes with Ryan Wood and Will Brown.

Stanaway was disappointed not to continue the momentum found in Tasmania, where the PremiAir Chevrolets finished fourth and fifth.

“I think we just got a bit of false confidence from Tassie and just got caught off guard this weekend with our approach, so we just really need to have a think about how we are going about it,” Stanaway said.

"When you don’t have a good weekend you learn a lot from it, so it is not like we had a bad weekend and didn’t learn anything, so that is the positive to take away from it – we can improve for the rest of the season I think based on what we learnt this weekend.”

Fullwood and Stanaway are 20th and 21st in the points heading to the former’s home round in Darwin on June 20-22.