Progress up in smoke for Tasman.
The first outing of Tasman Motorsport's new VY Commodore at Queensland Raceway ended in disappointment as a small fire in the car's airbox forced driver Jason Richards to retire from the Queensland 300.
Richards started the sixth round of the V8 Supercar Championship from 29th but was a major beneficiary of a first-lap pile-up involving five cars in front of him. By the time the debris cleared and the race restarted on Lap 11, Richards was up to 20th position.
The first outing of Tasman Motorsport's new VY Commodore at Queensland Raceway ended in disappointment as a small fire in the car's airbox forced driver Jason Richards to retire from the Queensland 300.
Richards started the sixth round of the V8 Supercar Championship from 29th but was a major beneficiary of a first-lap pile-up involving five cars in front of him. By the time the debris cleared and the race restarted on Lap 11, Richards was up to 20th position.
After pitting for tyres on lap 40, Richards said he "banged" the accelerator as he exited the pit lane, possibly sending a rush of petrol into the airbox that ignited a small fire that was extinguished in pit lane.
"It was no fault of the car - I probably banged the pedal on the pit lane exit, and that's what happens. You just can't do that," he said. "We'll take it back home and have a good look at it, but I expect that's what it was.
"We've struggled a bit for set-up this weekend but we were actually going okay today. We really wanted a finish today as a platform to get our season moving in the right direction so it's tough to take when some thing like this happens."
