The first endurance race of the season is over for the team, with a shortened Sandown 500 resulting in car 22 finishing 11th, and car 02 22nd.

Car 02 was the victim of a jammed throttle just past the halfway point, which resulted in car 22 being pushed off the track, collecting mud in the air intake, and momentarily overheating the engine.

It was neither of the driver’s fault, just a case of wrong place wrong time.

The race was red flagged at the end of lap one due to a fence needing repairing, which meant a time certain finish would only allow 125 of the 161 laps.

When the race went green again, Warren Luff, who started in car 02, went on the charge forward.

Some late pace in car 22 for Jack Perkins meant they handed the keys over to Scott and JC with both cars inside the top 10.

The 78-lap mark was when things went sour for car 02. As Scotty went over the back straight, the throttle jammed on in the worst possible spot.

That forced JC into the mud, and Scott into pit lane, putting him 12 laps down by the time the issue was resolved, and out of contention.

Once the mud was able to be cleared from car 22, the pace came back, but the group in front was too far down the road.

Scott’s pace was really strong towards the end, pulling up on the back of Mostert who was third.

Overall, not the day we were after. Race pace was there, but we are still working towards finding that one lap speed which will push us up the grid.

Next up is the big one, the Bathurst 1000.

Thanks as always for your support.

MATHEW NILSSON – ACTING GENERAL MANAGER OF MOTORSPORT

“We just didn’t get the cars quite tuned up for qualifying, so we need to go away and keep understanding that.

“The red flag at the start of the race really changed things strategy wise. The co-drivers still had to do 54 laps minimum, before JC and Scotty got in the car.

“They both did a great job in the car at the start, Luffy moved forward early, and Jack had good speed at the end.

“We were looking in a really reasonable position before car 02 had the unfortunate jammed throttle, so by no means was that JC and Scotty coming together, it was really no one’s fault.

“Then JC’s car got hot, and we had to change the strategy to get him to the reverse window, which caused him to lose front aero when we cleaned the front out.

“We go to Bathurst now focusing on qualifying, to make sure we are up the front of the pack.

“Thanks for all your wonderful support, we will give it our best shot.”