Supercars legend Mark Skaife has hit out at what he says is a “ridiculous” situation that is causing power-steering failures at the Bathurst 1000.
Will Brown stole the headlines on Friday when he set the fastest time in qualifying, but his Bathurst 1000 is all but over after the car he shares with Jack Perkins developed power-steering problems on Sunday.
Perkins was running ninth on lap 29 when the car suddenly started smoking heavily on the run across the top of Mount Panorama, forcing him to pit for significant repairs.
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It’s the same issue that befell Macauley Jones earlier in the week.
“I just stuck my head into Jack Perkins’ car, they topped the thing back up with oil, started it up and they were going through the steering,” former driver Mark Larkham said in commentary on Fox Sports.
“Seriously, I’ve never seen so much oil spray out of a power-steering system in my life.
“They’re now pulling the rack out. Bit of a drama. Too many times this happens.”
Skaife took aim at the category, suggesting something needed to be done to prevent the issue from happening again.
“It’s ridiculous. It’s because we’ve got mad steering geometries – that’s why. We’ve got 25 degrees caster (how far off vertical the steering axis is),” Skaife said.
“We’re going faster. When you build the grip you’ve got more steering load.
“It makes no sense to me for us all to be in a situation where the steering forces are too high.
“It shouldn’t be like that.”
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