A tyre mix-up has meant Anton De Pasquale was disqualified from his fifth-place finish in the latest Supercars race at Sydney Motorsport Park.
One of the tyres fitted to De Pasquale’s DJR Ford Mustang during his Race 21 pitstop was from teammate Will Davison’s allocation.
The costly stuff-up excludes De Pasquale from the official race result.
“It’s a mistake that we made, we’ve put our hand up, we accept the consequences,” team principal Ben Croke said.
The incident will not hinder Davison for this evening’s final race.
De Pasquale started Race 21 on pole position but made an awful start to slump to seventh by the end of lap one.
He was one of the first drivers to pit for new rubber, and the strategy promoted him to the lead once everyone else had cycled the lane.
But the earlier stop meant De Pasquale battled high tyre wear, and he could not resist the faster crop of cars behind him.
The race is the only session this weekend De Pasquale has not topped.
He won yesterday’s sole race from pole position and swept both qualifyings today.
“It’s an error that was made so we move on and do the best we can,” Croke said. “We’ve been really good this weekend and we’ll keep that up.”
De Pasquale starts from pole for the final race of the weekend, which begins at 6.30 pm NZT.