Supercars champion Jamie Whincup explains huge Adelaide crash

Whincup was pushing hard trying to overcome teammate Shane van Gisbergen in the dying seconds of the session and had just gone fastest in sector one when he fired his new Commodore into the Turn 8 wall.

The high-speed shunt pulled the left-front wheel clean from the car and sent it flying into the catch fencing, with the damaged Holden then coming to a halt against the wall.

"I was up, I was pushing hard," Whincup told Autosport.

"The car wasn't that flash through Turn 8. I put it on the line, made a mistake, ran wide, bang.

"It was a big impact.

"I was slow there [earlier in the session] just through driving, so I decided to up it a bit. And that's what happens.

"You're pushing the limits all the time. Sometimes when you step over the limit there are big consequences. Today was one of those days.

"It's all violent stuff. It slammed in hard. The thing just folds around you, and then the wheel flies off."

While admitting that it was driver error, Whincup also conceded that the new surface at Turn 8 and the fact that the ZB Commodore is a new car may have contributed.

"[The car] is a different beast this year," he said.

"It's not similar to previous years, I'm still trying to find my way.

"I'm struggling at places like Turn 1 and Turn 8, I haven't quite got a rhythm yet.

"[Turn 8] is a little bit more difficult now it's resurfaced. But it's the same for everyone, and you drive to the conditions. I clearly tried to push a little bit more out of it than what was there."

Triple Eight team manager Mark Dutton is confident the car can be repaired overnight so Whincup can participate in Saturday's morning top 10 shootout.

"It looked a lot worse on TV than reality," Dutton told Autosport.

"The car has done a good job. Three corners are toast, but the birdcage, the rear subframe, the front point on the left-rear has taken most of the impact.

"It's broken off, done its job effectively, but it's torn a bit of the metal. It hasn't broken off cleanly for a bolt-on repair, but it's a lot better than I first imagined."

Dutton admitted that the repair would take "well into the night", but said there were no concerns over spares despite the ZB being a brand new model.

"We haven't damaged that many ZB specific parts," he added.

He said Triple Eight will get the car "as close to 100% as we can" for the rest of the event.

"The most important thing is that the safety cage inside the car has zero damage," Dutton said.