Tickford boss Edwards blames Kelly for bizarre Adelaide pitlane crash
Tickford Racing boss Tim Edwards says Nissan's Rick Kelly, not penalised driver Chaz Mostert, is to blame for the controversial pitlane collision during the second Supercars race in Adelaide
When a safety car was called midway through the race, Mostert and Kelly crashed in the pitlane as much of the field chose to make a stop.
The incident started with Mostert being released straight into the path of Kelly. Contact then left Mostert parked 90-degrees to oncoming traffic.
Mostert was handed with a drive-through for the unsafe release. But Edwards has directed blame at Kelly for his failure to brake.
"To be honest, I blame Rick," said Edwards. "That was the dumbest thing, just driving straight into the side of Chaz at full steam and taking himself out of the race.
"There's a middle pedal in the car, and he didn't touch it. Pretty stupid by him.
"Of course Chaz was done for unsafe release, but Rick took himself out of the race and turned Chaz sideways, so it was pretty dumb.
"It's 100% our fault, between Chaz and the car controller we did move off. But it's not like he dumped the clutch in the pit box and took off. It's just a shame Rick didn't use the brake pedal."
Kelly, however, said he initially had no opportunity to brake and assumed Mostert knew he was close.
"Normally it's a close call, but this one wasn't," Kelly said. "I was right up alongside him when we hit.
"Once we hit I thought 'he knows I'm there now, he'll straighten back up', but he didn't. He belted back into me a second time. I thought 'he knows now', and then a third time, which spun him around in front of me.
"It was awkward for both of us."
After the race, Mostert did find and apologise to Kelly.
"At the end of the day I ruined Rick's race. I'm really apologetic for that, I never want to do that," said Mostert.
"It's our car's fault for coming into the fast lane while there was another car there.
"We definitely deserved the penalty. What's sad is we damaged his car enough I believe he went in the garage.
"It's the first time I've had a spin in pitlane, so I'll put that to the credentials.
Kelly added that it was not up to Mostert to apologise, and instead the blame lay with his Tickford team.
"He's come down and apologised, which is really good, it's pretty rare these days," he said.
"But it's really not for him to apologise. It's one of those things that I believe at that point should still be in the control of his car controller, who obviously didn't alert him to the fact I was next to him.
"There's not much he could have done in that situation."
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments