Bathurst winner 2002-It's not Skaife

[SWRT]

What a cheat Mark Skaife is,on the restart after the last saftey car he drew up beside Steve Richards and overtook him,not right.
Theres meant to be a rule where there's meant to be a space of 5 car lengths in between each car and if thats not done you'll get a drive through penalty and Tim Schenkan allowed
Skaife to get away with that,how much is TWR paying Tim Schenkan.
Also TWR did dirty on Larry Perkins at the end,getting Rick Kelly to punt Larry off and take track postion,then when told to let Larry back past Rick blocked and got Jason Bright ahead of him and Larry,After Bright let Larry ahead and then him and Rick both taking him again Murphy blocked Perkins.
Skaife seemed too quick even with plastic bags in the front airdam so there's something not right there and early on when car 2 got bogged for a short time it didn't seem right that he was at the front by the finish.
Bet they did this all for uncle Tom who should have been in Japan with Arrows.
Hope all TWR cars get disqualifyed after scrutaneering.

[Grubby]

The best man won - That's racing

[BATHURSTFAN]

I heard them talking about Skaifes position at the restart but they didn't say much more about it?

What are the rules AND WHAT DID HAPPEN? I have to watch the 3hr replay on FOXTEL this week.

I think it was Schenken when asked about the gap between HRT and the rest of the field and what was being done he seemed uninterested in doing anything as he said the crowds are growing and thats what basically matters so why change it.

It wasn't the best racewith all those pace cars, but thats the way it goes. HRT are just too good.

[Hati]

According to 10's commentary cars are not allowed to overlap before crossing the start line after restart. If that is true and they reinforced it, it could have been a different outcome, Skaife sitting behind Richards Jr. might have had overheating problems with those bags on the radiator.
Interestingly the officials had a thing for being consistent with penalties, yet this one was let go. Go figure :confused:

[ET351]

SWRT,

I totally agree with your first line of thinking. I thought it was pretty clear Skaife jumped the restart, and while it was mentioned by the commentators, there was no replay of the incident.

But I think you're wide of the mark with your other 'conspiracy' theories. I think the Rick Kelly/Larry Perkins incident was an accident, and if you listened to the race radio talk, it was clear they were unhappy about Bright tagging behind Perkins to pass Kelly. In fact at the next yellow the marshalls decreed Bright had to give up a spot.

I also thought Murphy was hard done by with an unprecedented 5 min penalty. I know there is a huge emphasis on safety, but what happened wasn't his fault. It was the crew chief's fault. Where was the man at the front? A fine should have been levied for that one, as Murphy was robbed of a genuine chance of winning the Great Race.

As a Ford fan, it was a disappointing race. I am amazed at the bad luck, bad tactics and bad driving that plagued the Ford teams. A three inch bolt breaks and the best winning chance, Jones/Bowe, falls apart. Even '00', when it catches some plastic, it cooks the engine, but Skaife seems to get all the luck, and limps to the line despite the same handicap.

But give them credit... as Grubby said, that's racing.

Cheers, ET351

[VRSS]

Now I only caught a fleeting glimpse of this incident.

By overlapping do they mean coming along side the other car or that they weren't in a single file behind the first car?

Skaife had pulled out from being directly behind Richo but was he actually starting to pass him before the line?

As for the two HRT cars being TOO quick SWRT, that just sounds like sour grapes. Remember, there were a LOT of safety car incidents which caused a lot of confusion by putting some cars back a lap and helped some others. Safety car strategy is used by all teams.

[Hati]

To the best of my knowledge overlapping is having your car or any part of it ahead of the rear bumper of the competitor in front.

[HDT 4 EVER]

swrt would you be saying that if it was not skaife? every week there seems to be some one putting skaife and hrt down if you want to talk about cheating what about the penalty to murphy 5 minutes what a joke that penalty is unheard of like murphy said a ford driver did the same thing last year and got no penalty so you could say they didnt want him to win i think we should give credit where credit is due skaife is a great driver and hrt are a great team i am a big holden fan but if a ford driver wins i take my hat off to them so i think people should stop complaining all you sound like are bad loosers not real lovers of our great race and drivers.

daryl

[Hati]

Just a quick update from one of the officials (not at the race): the control line is some 150 meters back from where Skaife was next to Richards' car so there was no rule breaking at all. That's why Skaifie didn't get pinged.

[loste_treasures]

i think that there are some pretty sore losers around....

[Dazz]

Originally posted by SWRT
What a cheat Mark Skaife is,on the restart after the last saftey car he drew up beside Steve Richards and overtook him,not right.
Theres meant to be a rule where there's meant to be a space of 5 car lengths in between each car and if thats not done you'll get a drive through penalty and Tim Schenkan allowed
Skaife to get away with that,how much is TWR paying Tim Schenkan.

Why should he have been given a drive through? He didn't do anything wrong.

The control line - ie the point at which overtaking is permitted - at Mt Panorama is located before pit bay one directly across from the control tower. It is NOT the line just in front of grid position number one.

Given the control line is before the pit bays, he has nearly 2/3 rd the length of the pit straight in which to line up an overtaking manouvre. A legitimate one at that.

Also where did you come up with this magical 5 car lengths rule :confused:

There is a rule which states the leading car in the que must stay within 5 car lengths of the safelty car, it sais nothing about all cars having to have a 5 car length gap between them.

With the amount of safety car periods, anyone could be forgiven for not being able to follow some of what happened, but seriously, bagging out Skaife for winning, for driving the absolute wheels off that car at the end of the race under difficult circumstances, I'm sorry but that is the sign of a very very poor loser.

[V8SS]

Good call Dazz
I thought the penalty on Murphy was pretty harsh and you could tell that he wasn't happy!!
Where do they dream up these penalties on race day. They weren't even given a chance to appeal as the 5 minute penalty was immediate. It seems strange that you can punt someone off the track ending their day and be given a drive through yet a team has an accident in pit lane which was dealt with very quickly with no harm to anyone and cops a 5 minute penalty while running in 2nd place and virtually kills his chances of winning the greatest race in Touring cars.

[Hati]

Under the rules Murph could have been disqualified all together for that fiasco. In other words he got off lightish (irrelevant whether I agree with it or not). The safety rules are so strict for the V8 supercars, that they won't even allow power tools in the pits because of fire danger. The stewards have also tried to penalise to act as a deterrent for the rest of the teams (my impression at least).
On the other hand full marks for the fire marshals for being on it within 2 seconds . Extremely well done.

[KRAKA05]

I would like to congratulate Skaife/Richards, Richards/Ingall and Bright/Mezera.

Good race boys.

Commiserations for the others.

There's always next year.

KRAKA

[Graeme]

Yeah boys, twas a bit of a bore with all those safety car laps.

Lets bring back the old roving tilt pick up truck with yellow flag warnings - not safe, but more exciting !!

Feel for Murf - if he could've contained his emotions, I reckon he should have radioed the team to set up a picnic table in the pits for his 5 minute penalty. It would've made good TV to see Murf sitting there next to the car drinking tea and eating cucumber sandwiches.

That penalty was no joke. Perhaps the teams ought look at incorporating an independent shut-off link in the hoses near where they join the car, such that if the same occurred again,
the hoses would separate at the link and shut off fuel loss.

[Senator1]

HATI, you're correct in saying the control line is further back down the track under the pitstraight bridge,cars to that point must be in single file, as we all know the shortest lap of the race is the first lap as the start line line is up the road from the finish line.
As for Murph, i agree, as the driver he was hard done by the team should have been given a penalty in terms of dollars:mad:

[Grubby]

I'm not even sure if the commentators knew where the control line was/is.

Skaife blew the start at the beginning of the race but did rectified this error with a great restart after the safety car period.

It has been shown that the move was made within the rules and Skaife just aced the restart.

Being infront would have had to help with his temp problem. The air from a clear track is a lot cooler than the air coming from the car infront of you.

Murphy was robbed. He would have been a great chance come the last 20 laps. The penalty in my opinion was way to harsh.

Grubby

[wombat]

Read all your informed comments with interest. Have a couple myself.

Are the teams made aware of the possible penalties for breaches of safety regs? Ie, did Murph's team know that such a serious screwup would earn them something more than a drive-thru? Dont forget - the penalty was not aimed at Murphy or and other individual - it's a team penalty.

I also heard Brock say during interview that he had been black-flagged for his teams little environmental disaster, but the 05 car was on the track at the finish. Does black-flag mean slap on the wrist now?

Congrats to HRT and all drivers. Great team, great effort. As a Ford man I can only dream that the Barra will put an end to Holden dominance. Dick's comments re the Barra's front end were significant, ie, that the AU's problems are fixed. I hope.

Oh yeah, I thought that 10's commentary was crappy. They were more interested in inane chat than telling us what was happening as it happened. Visuals were great - that simulcast thingy was fantastic.


Dave

[Grubby]

Dave

You are spot on about the simulcast thingy. It was excellent.

Lets hope taht when they release the DVD they put some of this footage on there.

let's also hope that they make it longer than 2 hours.
A bit more of the race & even top 15 footage would be good.

Grubby

[Flebin]

well come on all you people that were calling skaife/HRT a cheat?
I don't understand people that that put down good driving/good teamwork and skill! Yeah it would be good to see Ford contending better cos then it would be a much better race, no matter who wins. Like someone said in another thread HRT youst to strugle alot and now due to great teamwork and a great driver there in top of the game. so dont fool yourselves you people out there calling HRT cheats, if you were true fans of the sport you would acknowledge talent not try and fault it.
Well thats my two cents ;)

[ET351]

OK, I'm big enough to admit it. Seems from some of the updated info provided by my co-forum members, Skaife DIDN'T jump the restart.

So, I withdraw my comments made in my earlier post in relation to that incident.

And as an avid Ford fan, I will "give them credit". Thats as close as I can come to saying 'congrat&$*^@s' to HRT!!!

But I still think the penalty against Murphy was too harsh. Two other teams made fuel spills (including Brockie's). Neither got 5 min penalties. If they (the stewards) argue that those spills were less dangerous, then it makes a mockery of their safety clamp down. Every fuel spill is dangerous.


Cheers, ET351