Apologetic Le Brocq stung by Reynolds clash

Jack Le Brocq’s Finals hopes have been stung over his role in a race-changing clash with David Reynolds.

The Matt Stone Racing driver collided with Reynolds with three laps remaining in Friday’s Darwin opener, which was won by Tickford Racing's Cam Waters.

Le Brocq was hit with a 15-second penalty for careless driving, dropping him from ninth to 24th — and last — in the final classification.

The stewards report reads: "The Stewards reviewed broadcast vision in conjunction with the DSA.

"When attempting an overtake, Car 4 collided with the rear of Car 20 at Turn 6 on Lap 31, causing it to spin and leave the track.

"The Stewards determined that Car 4 has insufficient overlap with Car 20 to be entitled to be given racing room and that the Driver of Car 4 was wholly to blame for the collision.

"The Stewards imposed a 15 second time penalty on Car 4 to be added to his race time, consistent with previous breaches of a similar nature."

The penalty puts Le Brocq 96 points behind 10th placed Chaz Mostert, having started the weekend 68 points down. He was eighth, 36 points up after Taupō.

Speaking on the broadcast, Le Brocq lamented a poor qualifying result and strategy call, and apologised for his role in the Reynolds incident.

"Look, it's been unfortunate. Firstly, apologies to Davey on that one," Le Brocq said.

"We had a go. We had the speed over Davey and [Ryan] Woody there, and we were trying to make those couple spots at the end there. Unfortunately, yeah, it didn't pay off. So, apologies to him on that one.

"Probably the wrong call there. I thought I was gonna go longer, to probably get a bit of a better yield from it all.

"Either way, we were trucking along okay... we moved forward. We've just gotta try and qualify a little bit better tomorrow."

Saturday Supercars action kicks off with Boost Mobile Qualifying at 10:45am local time/11:15am AEST.