The team has figured strongly at the iconic event over that past decade, including fourth and seventh-place finishes in 2015.

Both cars set a blistering pace in every practice and qualifying session with the Tim Slade/Ash Walsh entry qualifying fifth and the Jason Bright/Andrew Jones entry slightly further back in 11th.

But the strong build-up would be for nought, as both BJR cars fell a lap behind within the first two hours of the race.

A standard brake pad change on lap 63 was the undoing of Slade.

A small error caused the brake piston to pop out and the resultant heat started a fire in the car’s wheel well.

Despite the crew’s fast actions, it took nearly five minutes to get the back on the track, effectively ruining their day.

The mistake was compounded by the duo's strong track position at the time – Walsh pitted when he was in second place.

Slade and Walsh continued to drive strongly for the rest of the day, fighting back to the lead lap with 46 laps remaining.

The chaotic second half of the race helped the duo to a remarkable seventh-place finish overall. 

Bright and Jones had similar bad luck with a gear selector breaking in the first hour.

With no sign of a safety car, the pit stop to fix it buried them two laps down, albeit with a fast car.

Even though it occurred early in a very long race, two laps was a huge margin to make up.

Both Bright and Jones pressed on with the goal of at least getting back on the lead lap.

It ended in tears on lap 92 when Jones hit the wall at 200km/h, destroying the Team BOC Commodore.

Jones was clearly shaken but thankfully unhurt.

The team now has a massive job to prepare a car for Bright, with only a two week break until the next race.

Albury-born Team Erebus driver David Reynolds and co-driver Craig Baird were quiet achievers, keeping themselves just outside the top ten for most of the day.

Reynolds and new Race engineer Alistair McVean had gelled quickly and the relationship was proving productive.

All was well until lap 103, when the car broke a tail shaft mount, which caused a bearing to drop out and sent the car into the pits.

Though they were able to get back out on the track, Reynolds and Baird finished well off the pace in 18^th.

“The car was getting faster and faster as the day went on,” a disappointed Reynolds said post-race.

“As more rubber went down it just got quicker, we would have been right in mix.

“But we have lots of positives to take away from this week. Alistair just rocked into the team on Monday and already has made a huge difference.”

The next round is on the Gold Coast in two weeks.