Race 2 of the Gold Coast was dramatic, and not positively. There are two issues here that I’ll discuss in this article. But the first issue showed why the Finals/Chase is absolutely stupid.
In the second race on the Gold Coast, both Toyota and Chevrolet worked to help Ryan Wood and Anton De Pasquale, respectively, qualify for the Semi-Final.
This is what we know happened between Toyota and Chevrolet.
Sam Scaffidi, Chaz Mostert’s engineer, told Chaz Mostert to drop back and let Ryan Wood past so he could get a better result.
The pass got Ryan Wood into the semi-finals temporarily.
Once Ryan Wood’s semi-finals run had failed, they switched back, giving Mostert the podium.
Erebus Motorsport and PremiAir Racing then pitted Jarrod Hughes and Cooper Murray in the last few laps, which pushed Anton De Pasquale up two places.
We know that Jarrod Hughes would’ve run out of fuel if he hadn’t pitted. Premiair Hire Racing confirmed that Cooper Murray would’ve run out of fuel too.
Teams drain the cars post-race, and both Premiair Hire and Erebus said that the Jarrod Hughes #99 and Cooper Murray #36 needed to pit to refuel.
Late race, Macauley Jones pulled into the garage with steering damage and lost 4 laps. He was running ahead of Anton.
That’s what’s known and unknown about the race manipulations.
This is why I hate the Chase/Finals. I don’t know if Cooper Murray’s pit stop was race manipulation. The shuffling of Mostert and Wood was. Jarrod Hughes’ pit stop wasn’t race manipulation.
Race manipulation isn’t new, but it hasn’t been this blatant or bad. Which sucks, because I watched the live timing and saw Mostert closing the gap to Kostecki and Feeney.
I wanted to see Mostert vs Kostecki and Mostert vs Feeney if Mostert overtook Kostecki. The Chase/Finals robbed us of this battle.
Cooper Murray and Jarrod Hughes running out of fuel is another subject.
Two rounds in a row a team(s) has miscalculated fuel reserves. Team 18 did that mistake, costing Anton victory and leaving him and co-driver Lee Holdsworth 2nd last.
Now Erebus Motorsports and Premiair Hire Racing have stuffed up similarly. Don’t forget that James Golding isn’t in the chase/finals because of a miscalculation by the Blanchard Racing Team at Tailem Bend. A result that got James Golding and his co-driver Richie Stanaway disqualified. That lost Golding nearly 200 points.
Yes, I calculated it out. Without that disqualification, James Golding gets into the Chase/Finals over Jack LeBrocq by 36 points.
Issues with these calculations have happened last 3 rounds. And it’s unacceptable. As with Golding, it can cause major changes to the championship. It can screw drivers out of potentially awesome results.
This is one of many reasons why the Chase/Finals must be gotten rid of. Even changing it to the 2026 Chase would improve the format while keeping some tension.
(As a protest of the Chase/Finals, I did “Every Round is a Final”. So, how does the defending champion being unable to defend his championship sound? How does Jayden Ojeda currently being 7th in the Championship sound?)
