A devastated Greg Murphy has taken the blame for the crash that eliminated the front-running Holden Racing Team Commodore VF from the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 and also hurt James Courtney’s Championship hopes.
The four-time Bathurst winner lost the rear-end of the Holden as he rounded the right-hand turn heading into Reid Park. The impact into the concrete wall at 135km/h destroyed the right-front suspension of the car.
“I don’t know what happened, I either turned in too late or a bit too aggressively,” Murphy said. “It was weird. I had had moments on other parts of the track today, but not there.
“It completely caught me by surprise. I lost the rear and as soon as it got in the marbles it was gone. I wasn’t going to collect it from there.”
It was the fourth big crash of the week at Reid Park this week as team have battled to set up their new Car of the Future V8 Supercars. A blustery wind has not helped car handling today.
Murphy suffered no serious injury in the crash, which was the second notable one of the race after David Russell collected a kangaroo in the Jack Daniel’s Nissan Altima he was sharing with Todd Kelly on lap 21.
“The pride is hurt,” said Murphy. “There is no upside to this; his Championship, the team, the build-up, what you come here for.
“It’s been a tough weekend for a lot of teams, the cars have caught us all out on how they have behaved around the track. They are certainly not easy and they are not the nicest car I have ever driven around Bathurst by any means.”
The Courtney/Murphy Commodore qualified fifth for the Great Race and was shaping as a rostrum player when the accident happened on lap 87.
The DNF meant Courtney missed the chance to collect up to 300 Championship points in this race and will certainly drop from fifth in the Championship.
But Courtney refused to make his teammate any worse than he already was.
“Being so gusty I thought the car was moving around a lot more than normal,” Courtney said. “Conditions are really, really tricky. I was having moments and our car was pretty loose all weekend.
“This could have happened to anyone, I am just gutted for Murph. He is just a seasoned campaigner and to go out like this is tearing him up. We’ll be right, we will rebuild the car and press on at Indy. The good thing is he’s okay.”
Courtney has dropped from fifth in the Championship to ninth and is now 514 points off leader Jamie Whincup, who fininshed the race in second with Warren Luff, 0.4 seconds behind first time winner Mark Winterbottom, paired with three-time winner Steve Richards.
