The decision by Supercars to abandon last night’s race at Sydney Motorsport Park has been slammed by the man who would have started from pole position, Nick Percat.
The former Bathurst 1000 champion had qualified fasted for race 30 of the series, which was abandoned completely after the cars completed a handful of laps behind the safety car.
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Sydney’s wet weather was behind the decision to throw the red-flag, but Percat said the call, which was also made last month at the same track, was wrong, explaining that the rain was a similar intensity during qualifying earlier in the day.
“The track condition was not much different to what we drove in the shootout, to be honest,” he told speedcafe.com.
https://twitter.com/NickPercat/status/1462314113892110336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
“I think Supercars need to have a rethink on how they judge the track conditions because that’s now two races in a row where it’s wet and they’ve declared it when I don’t think it needed to be declared.
“Like, we didn’t even need to have the wipers going full bore, I had mine on intermediate – there wasn’t enough rain around and it just kind of was drizzle all day, so it’s pretty frustrating.”
The earlier Super2 race had been marred by a sizeable crash in the wet conditions, but the Brad Jones Racing driver pointed out that the best drivers in the sport should be able to put on a show for fans.
“This weekend we actually had a really good crowd there at Sydney Motorsport Park, which is hard enough as it is, and then to do that to them after they have sat out there in the rain all day is not ideal,” he said.
“Supercars and NSW Government and everyone behind the scenes worked so hard to get us to be able to race these four rounds, maybe we need to put as much effort into making sure we actually complete the races.
“I think they might have got spooked watching Super2 and that crash, but honestly it’s a bunch of kids who are fresh out of go-karts, so it’s not a fair comparison.
“Not once did I get asked by anyone of any sort of officialdom how the track was.”
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