Triple Eight shot themselves in the foot in the final Supercars race of the weekend, losing an almost certain victory at Sydney Motorsport Park.
Instead, it is Will Brown and Erebus who will be singing the night away as the youngster capitalised on the intra-team tension behind him to claim an incredible first win.
Jamie Whincup refused to yield to teammate Shane van Gisbergen in the race’s latter stages, despite team orders instructing otherwise.
Van Gisbergen, supposedly the quicker of the two teammates, couldn’t find a clean path past Whincup.
The two nearly came to blows on several occasions. Whincup pushed van Gisbergen wide multiple times, including during one wild sequence between turns three and five where the Kiwi was in the weeds.
Whincup saw it all as a bit of fun. That, and he’s only got three more races as a full-time driver before retirement, so why give in?
“SVG wanted to have a bit of a battle, so I thought we’d have a battle together,” he said.
“We raced hard right to the very end. It was a good opportunity to get the win for us, but unfortunately, it didn’t happen because we fought each other.
“I’ve only got a couple more races left, so I’m not going to give any away.”
Van Gisbergen wasn’t overly amused about the situation, suggesting the tussles with Whincup cost the team a victory.
“It was a tough one,” van Gisbergen said. “It was a good battle, probably entertaining, but I feel like we lost the chance at a race win.
“At one point, I was enjoying the battle, but I was also thinking we [had to] win the race. But it is what it is.”
Triple Eight team manager Mark Dutton is likely the most annoyed of all with what unfolded on track.
Understandably, Dutton didn’t want to go into too much detail on his opinion post-race. Even so, he hinted at what might be said to his two drivers later this evening.
“It’s one of those things that from the garage we saw it one way and from the cockpit it was seen another way,” Dutton said.
“We’ll debrief that and have a chat about which was the right way and which was the wrong way.
“It’s probably pretty obvious but we’ll discuss it.”
