Team 18 knew “we were f**ked” when the Safety Car came out
Anton De Pasquale led into final lap, but didn't finish after fuel drama
Brodie Kostecki gifted victory, wins second Bathurst in three years
Team 18 knew “we were f**ked” when the Safety Car came out with five laps remaining, says Team Principal Adrian Burgess.
The Chevrolet squad looked to have the Repco Bathurst 1000 win for the taking, only for Anton De Pasquale to run out of fuel on the last lap.
The shock moment delivered victory to Brodie Kostecki and the Shell V-Power Racing Team, and most jarringly for Team 18, to Ford.
Crew members were in tears as the drama unfolded, with De Pasquale stopping at The Chase, recording a devastating DNF where just 100 seconds earlier, he appeared set for victory.
Several rival drivers and teams offered commiserations to the drivers, Burgess, team owner Charlie Schwerkolt and other Team 18 crew members after the race.
De Pasquale and Lee Holdsworth bravely fronted up on the broadcast, while Schwerkolt briefly spoke on Supercars’ Equip Super Cool Down Lap podcast.
“It’s one of the hardest things you go through in this sport,” Burgess told media.
“Everybody, especially the drivers, had put in all the hard work for months really to get to that point, and I think we proved we were worthy of it.”
The #18 DEWALT Camaro had been a front runner all weekend, let alone all. De Pasquale and Holdsworth drove superbly, but a calculation delivered the death knell.
“There’s no point glossing over it,” said Burgess, who conceded a major debrief is coming, and that he needs to "put our arm around the team."
"We dropped the ball at the last moment. You don’t get any closer to having it in the bank than we had it in the bank, but we didn’t. I can’t explain it. We’re just absolutely gutted. We’ve had an error somewhere in the fuel calculations. It’s pretty clear.”
De Pasquale emerged with a comfortable lead over Zach Bates, who himself was being told to manage his tyres amid blistering. De Pasquale had been told to “maximum” fuel save before Chaz Mostert crashed.
Earlier, De Pasquale was told to “start saving a little bit of fuel” to have margin, before being reassured he would be fine. When the Safety Car was deployed, the team realised the magnitude of the situation.
“We were f**ked already. We knew we were. We were trying to manage it when [the Safety Car] came,” Burgess admitted.
“Obviously, we thought, ‘Great, here we go, this is going to help’, but we sort of realised it probably wasn’t going to help enough. But then you’re sort of one foot in, one foot out.
“Do you come down the pit lane and put fuel in, or do you hope the error is not as big as the error that you think you’ve identified and that you’ve got enough to get home?
“No one really cares who’s second or third or fourth or fifth, or if you’re 17th, we come here to win it. We had nothing to lose by just trying to roll that dice a little bit harder and get to the flag.”
