No penalty for Darwin Camaro climb

The Darwin Triple Crown finale started in dramatic fashion with Andre Heimgartner climbing over Cooper Murray, but with more drivers involved, no penalty was handed out.

On the opening lap of Sunday’s race, the surreal sight of Heimgartner soaring over Murray’s windscreen occurred at Turn 5.

A concertina affect saw the #8 BJR Camaro pushed into the right rear of the #888 wildcard as the pack negotiated the heavy braking right hander.

With the so much force from behind, Heimgartner could do nothing as he found himself climbing over the top of Murray.

Despite the extraordinary scenes, both cars actually suffered minimal damage and resumed racing. Heimgartner managed to fight his way to 21st, while Murray was 6 laps down.

The incident was investigated, but no penalty was dished out with the stewards believing no driver was “wholly or predominantly to blame for the incident.”

“An incident on the first Lap of the Race at Turn 5 which involved Car 8, Andre Heimgartner, colliding with the rear of Car 888, Cooper Murray,” read the stewards report. 

“The available evidence showed that the incident resulted from Cars slowing ahead of Car 888 which caused Cars 888 and 8 to brake hard and multiple Cars behind Car 8 colliding with each other and in turn with Car 8.

There was no evidence that any Driver or Drivers were wholly or predominantly to blame for the incident.”

Rookie Murray had raised eyebrows by qualifying the Supercheap Auto wildcard in an impressive 10th and knew there was nothing he could have done to avoid the chaos.

“It’s not what you want, especially when you’re at the front, but unfortunately that stuff happens,” he told AUTO ACTION. 

“I thought qualifying up the front would keep me out of the shit, but I was I was proved wrong.

“It is still a mystery. I think we all concertinaed, and from what I’ve heard, Andre got help from behind, which meant he had nowhere to go, and that just put him into me, so from there, you just have to move on. I learned a lot.”

Heimgartner said he was simply the “last one in the chain.”

“Tough race. Unfortunately being the last one in the chain and you ended up in the sky and took a while to come down,” he said. 

“After that the car wasn’t actually too bad. I think the setup from then wasn’t terrible just one of those things when you start there and it’s stuck in everyone’s mess, so disappointing overall but will keep on trucking.”

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Listen to our latest episode on your podcast app of choice or here