With eighteen laps to go, Zilisch got by Van Gisbergen to take the lead but went wide at the exit. As Zilisch rejoined the track, his nose gets into the back of Van Gisbergen’s car, causing him to spin out and wreck.
Van Gisbergen slid into the wall and made violent contact, all four wheels getting airborne, and his car was left destroyed. Van Gisbergen was quick to report over team radio that he was okay and got out of the car under his own steam and was taken to the medical care centre and cleared of any injury.
“Yeah, not ideal, pretty gutted really. Our car wasn’t great, but we still managed to get ourselves in a good position,” said Van Gisbergen
When asked about Zilisch’s contact about what happened, Van Gisbergen replied, “I haven’t watched the incident yet, but will watch it later and sort it out”
Meanwhile Zilisch was left a bit rattled.
“I’m sorry, I think he thought he was clear. I don’t know what I could have done differently there. I had nowhere to go.”
“He spun off my nose,” said the 19-year-old.
His team tell him to shake it off, Zilisch says: “Don’t lie to me if I wrecked him either. … If I wrecked him, tell me.”
Zilisch’s crew chief later put blame on Van Gisbergen for not leaving Zilisch enough room to rejoin. Fans on social media arguing when a driver makes a mistake like Zilisch did, Van Gisbergen had no obligation to”let” him back on track and was told by his spotter that he was clear.
Van Gisbergen had also run wide a little, as normal, and was rejoining the track over the chicane when Zilisch comes in and gets into the back of him.
There is no out of bounds so it is racing.
That was the young fellas fault. He could have steered away from the back of Shane’s car or even lifted off the gas for a second. He was well behind SVG when he moved back onto the track.