McLAUGHLIN’S COSTLY DELAY UNEXPLAINED

Pit delay costs Scott McLaughlin win – Photo: InSyde Media

A delay in his pit sequence, which cost championship leader Scott McLaughlin his eighth race victory of the season remains unexplained.

McLaughlin had only 51-litres of fuel put in his car at the first pit stop, but emerged behind teammate Fabian Coulthard, who had an extra 5-litres placed in his car. It was soon worked out McLaughlin lost 2s in the sequence with the title favourite unsure on where he lost the time.

“Not at the moment, not until we debrief,” McLaughlin said. “We’ve just got to have a look around and a think.”

“I don’t know what the deal was, I had a pretty solid, whether I was a little bit slower on the in-lap, but I’m pretty sure it was pretty similar to yesterday, I’m always there or thereabouts.

“It something to genuinely look at.”

Coulthard expected to see a similar Mustang to take his position as he left pit lane, but it never eventuated as he took his first victory of the year, continuing DJR Team Penske’s dominating run of form.

“I thought I’d come out of the pits and Scott would fly past me on the straight, I don’t know what happened, we were worried about what we were doing,” said Coulthard.

“It was a surprise.”

Reflecting on the strategy, McLaughlin wasn’t surprised that many of his rivals around him took the undercut, but he saw nothing wrong with it as he still managed to take home second behind his teammate.

“I think whenever you pit as the first car, everyone knows your fuel number, they either undercut or change their fuel so I knew some people may try and jump me,” he said.

“I was surprised Cam [Waters] jumped me as much as he did, it was what it was, I knew I had fuel mileage on a lot of people so I just tried to stay with Fabian [Coulthard]. In that second stint we were pushing pretty hard trying to get past Anton [De Pasquale].”

McLaughlin takes a 124-point championship lead to the Perth SuperNight round on May 2-4.

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