McLaughlin mustang writeoff 13
McLaughlin mustang writeoff 13

Bathurst winner has run its last race

Riley Riley

Scott McLaughlin’s record-breaking Mustang is a writeoff after he crashed in qualifying for the Vodafone Gold Coast 600.

The 20-minute qualifying session session ended abruptly when McLaughlin’s Mustang ended up on its side after it hit the inside kerb of the concrete wall-lined street circuit at 140km/h.

It’s the same car in which he set the lap record at Bathurst this year with a blistering two minutes, 03.77 seconds — 0.06 of a second faster than the old mark he set in 2017.

In a remarkable show of sportsmanship arch rival Shane van Gisbergen stopped to help the McLaughlin out of his damaged car.

McLaughlin’s car was one of two Mustangs written off on the hard-as-nails Surfers Paradise street circuit.

Tickford Racing has announced Chaz Mostert’s chassis is also beyond repair after its Saturday shunt.

Codenamed DJRTP 06, McLaughlin’s car was built new for 2019; the only one of the six Mustangs on the full-time grid that wasn’t an upgraded Falcon FG X.

Shell V-Power Racing has confirmed the car will be repaired, but only for display purposes, with a new car to be built in time for the Penrite Oil Sandown 500 in a fortnight.

McLaughlin took the car to 16 Armor All Poles and a new wins-in-a-season benchmark of 18, including the recent Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 alongside Alex Premat.

The Bathurst win meant Shell V-Power Racing had already decided to retire the car at season’s end, with the crash simply expediting that process.

“The damage is quite extensive, there’s bends and kinks and ripples in the floor past the firewall, which is never a good sign,” explained team boss Ryan Story.

“To repair that chassis when we have intentions of retiring it since it’s a Bathurst winner doesn’t really make a lot of sense.

“We’re very fortunate to have a brand-new chassis at the shop and we’ll build that up over the course of the next few days and race that at Sandown.”

The team had stripped the car of its panels and key running gear after Bathurst, so that it can later be preserved as-raced.

McLaughlin escaped the wreckage seemingly uninjured, although later spent time at Gold Coast University Hospital undergoing tests before being given the all-clear.

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Scott McLaughlin’s record-breaking Mustang is a writeoff

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