The Australian touring car championship faced intense scrutiny after Supercars officially dismissed allegations of a manufacturer-backed conspiracy involving Chevrolet during a tense weekend at the Gold Coast. Paddock whispers ran rampant following a flurry of late tactical pit stops that ultimately secured a crucial progression spot for one of the championship contenders.
The controversy ignited when Anton De Pasquale found himself on the brink of elimination following a dismal qualifying session and an early puncture on the opening lap. A late-race sequence saw him draw level in a tie-breaker, aided significantly when fellow Camaro drivers Jarrod Hughes and Cooper Murray executed unscheduled late stops for fuel while running comfortably inside the top ten positions.
Those sudden maneuvers immediately triggered alarm bells regarding potential manufacturer interference, especially given the strict rulebook regulations prohibiting any external entities or automobile importers from imposing team orders across independent squads. However, series officials moved swiftly to confiscate and examine the fuel loads of the disputed vehicles.
Following rigorous technical checks, Supercars motorsport director Tim Edwards confirmed to Speedcafe that the fuel levels were indeed critically low and the pit stops were entirely mandatory for survival rather than tactical manipulation. "I can tell you that we have pumped the fuel out of both of those cars, and had they not done the third pitstop they wouldn’t have finished the race," Edwards stated firmly.
Edwards added that while the governing body is always inherently suspicious of unusual on-track triggers and scrutinizes capacity anomalies closely, the rigorous post-race fuel pump-outs definitively cleared the teams involved of any regulatory breaches regarding external team orders.
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