Brad Jones Racing (BJR) driver Nick Percat had a lucky escape when he wrote off his brand new Holden in race one of the Supercar event at the Australian Grand Prix on Friday.
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On the second last lap, Percat’s brakes failed at over 200km/h and only 100 metres from turn one.
The quick-thinking driver tried to avoid colliding with the cars in front by short cutting across the grass, but at such high speed had no hope of keeping his car under control.
It spun and careened backwards into Leigh Holdsworth in a massive impact.
Percat was visibly shaken after the crash, doubling over as he caught his breath.
We had a good day, it’s rare you get four qualifying sessions in a row so it was a really good back-to-back comparison and we could try things. I’m happy to have qualified in the top ten every time, ideally I’d like to be in the top five every time, but we just missed it a little bit.
- David Reynolds
He has been cleared of any significant injury.
BJR are a loss to explain what happened and will thoroughly investigate.
The weekend started well for the Border’s Supercar stars with BJR’s Tim Slade qualifying third and Albury’s Dave Reynolds fifth.
Reynolds felt that he had more pace to come.
“We had a good day, it’s rare you get four qualifying sessions in a row so it was a really good back-to-back comparison and we could try things,” Reynolds said.
“I’m happy to have qualified in the top ten every time, ideally I’d like to be in the top five every time, but we just missed it a little bit.”
However, both had their races ruined on Friday, with Slade retiring with a flat tyre when running fifth, while Reynolds got pushed at the start and was 17th after the first lap.
In a superb drive, he fought his way through the field to finish ninth.
There is another race on Saturday and one on Sunday leading up to the Australian Grand Prix.
Australian Formula One star Dan Ricciardo started his weekend well to finish Friday’s practice session third behind three-time world champion Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.
