Harri Jones walks away from "terrifying" failure in testing
Matt Stone Racing co-driver a passenger in high-speed accident
Camaro set to miss the rest of Tuesday's enduro test
Harri Jones has walked away from a “terrifying” accident during the pre-enduro test, with a suspected brake failure tipping his Matt Stone Racing Camaro into the wall.
Porsche Carrera Cup champion Jones, who was recently called up alongside Jack Le Brocq in the place of Cameron Crick, spun off at high speed at Turn 6 in the opening stages of the afternoon session.
When the incident occurred, Jones said he was on his third or fourth lap after a pit stop, that included a brake change. Jones walked away from the incident, which left the #4 Sherrin Rentals Camaro with significant left side damage.
The car is unlikely to return on Tuesday, with MSR also facing an overnight rebuild ahead of Wednesday’s ride day session, also at Queensland Raceway.
The MSR wildcard Camaro of Aaron Seton also suffered brake issues in Friday practice at last weekend's Century Batteries Ipswich Super 440, which put him into the Turn 3 gravel.
“Basically I was just circulating, waiting to come back in and do another rotation, and going into Turn 6 just had full brake failure,” Jones told select media, including Supercars.com.
“Pedal went to the floor, unfortunately didn't slow down that much and then found the wall pretty hard at Turn 6. So I reckon it's probably ended our day unfortunately.
"I think the car's gonna be fixed. We've had a good morning. I've had a few laps to get back into the routine. Disappointed more than anything that I can't really get the rest of the afternoon before The Bend, so it's definitely put us on the back foot.
"But, yeah, you live and you learn. This is motorsport, so yeah, it's disappointing, but it happens.”
Jones was only confirmed as Le Brocq’s co-driver in recent days, and reinforced his Carrera Cup lead across the weekend. Come Tuesday, and after a solid morning session, it went pear-shaped in scenes out of his control.
“The front brakes were just completely gone and built up about 50psi, and then either a brake line's sheared off or something's gone on, but luckily still had a tiny bit of rear brake,” Jones said.
“It's just like locked rears I think on a down change before it hit the gravel and then it's gone sideways into the tyre wall at Turn 6. So fortunately it is a tyre wall, that's not just straight concrete.
“Still pretty substantial damage.”
When asked about the incident itself, Jones said: Oh, mate, it's f***ing terrifying, to be honest.
"I've never really had that happen before. Hope not to have it happen again, but at least we had a safe racetrack this weekend and there was a gravel trap, there were tyres walls and I'm fine.
“It didn't slow down much when I hit the brake pedal, so I don't know. I think we were arriving there at about 200 and something. It was pretty quick. It definitely got my attention.”
Jones will join Le Brocq for the AirTouch 500 at The Bend on September 11-13, followed by the Repco Bathurst 1000 on October 8-11.
