PYE: HE MADE A STATEMENT

In what was an action-packed weekend one controversial and sizeable incident occurred between Scott Pye and Jack Le Brocq, it is a crash that divided the paddock and saw a furious Pye pull no punches.

In the opening lap of the second race Pye covered Le Brocq out of the final turn, however the Matt Stone Racing driver had overlap and did not back out of the throttle.

The result was that Pye spun backwards and crashed heavily into the concrete wall (image above, credit: Ross Gibb Photography), ruling him out for the remainder of the weekend.

While the stewards deemed it a racing incident, the two drivers had very strong opinions as to who was at fault.

Pye admitted he under-estimated the run that Le Brocq got out of the final turn, but was livid that the MSR driver kept his foot on the throttle and did not hold back on his assessment of Le Brocq.

“He knew what he was doing, he made it very clear that he was making a statement by putting me in the wall and that was that he’s not going to be muscled out of position,” Pye said post-race.

“The first touch is always what we look for as a driver and then after that it was like, ‘oh shit okay, there’s an overlap.’

“But unfortunately, he decided I was meeting that concrete wall and he turned left, that was the biggest thing, him hooking left – he apologised as well to the team so he’s taken ownership of it.

“But he’s kind of put himself in a situation now where his statement is probably going to put him in trouble one day.

“I just feel for Charlie (Team 18 owner). It’s cost the team a lot of money and I feel for the crew, the hours everyone has to put into it now.

“There’s responsibility on both parts but making it very clear that he made the choice to put me in the fence. I’m sure everyone knows how I feel about that, because there’s a lot of people here that have to work late nights now because of someone like Jack Le Brocq.

“There’s a reason he’s funding it himself.”

Le Brocq was very disappointed to see the damaged Team 18 machine, but said that if he backed out of the throttle then, he’d be doing it for the rest of his career.

“It’s unfortunate,” Le Brocq said. “You never want to see a crashed car. “We had overlap; he kept on coming across.

“Some will say I probably should have lifted and probably would have saved a car, but then how many times are you gonna keep doing that … he knows he’s going to get away with it.

“It’s a tough one, I don’t know what to say, it’s just one of those awkward incidents.”

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