Repco Australia Superlastcar Championship: Power Steering failure leaves Cooper Murray last at Tasmania

Friday, 22 May 2026

Power Steering failure leaves Cooper Murray last at Tasmania

Credit: Supercars

Cooper Murray (#99 Total Energies/Quartz Chevrolet) finished last at Symmonds Plains. The finish is the 7th of his career, and came because of power steering failure that left him too many laps down to be classified. The finish came in Murray’s 53rd start, and is his 3rd of the season.

Cooper Murray is in his 2nd full-time season for Erebus Motorsports, and after a difficult 2025 with 3 last-place finishes, Murray hoped better results came this year. Total Energy came aboard as a full-time sponsor for 2026. Murray didn’t take part in Practice 1 because of suspension failure. However, 2nd Practice saw him 17th. Murray then qualified slowest.

Cooper Murray (#99 Total Energies/Quartz Chevrolet) started last. Declan Fraser (#777 PremiAir/Nulon Chevrolet) fell to last off the start.

Lap 6 saw a concertina at Turn 1 that ended with Rylan Grey (#38 Shell V-Power Ford) spinning Aaron Cameron (#3 Liqui Moly Ford). The contact sent Cameron around and dropped him into last place. Cameron would only recover to 23rd.

Kai Allen (#26 Penrite Ford) copped a 15-second time penalty for his role in the contact.

Cooper Murray (#99 Total Energies/Quartz Chevrolet) pulled into the Garage with a Power Steering failure, dropping him to last. Murray would return to the track, but too many laps down to be classified.

Completing the Bottom Five was Jackson Walls (#11 Overdrive Ford), Jobe Stewart (#9 Total Energies/Quartz Chevrolet) and Macauley Jones (#96 Summit/Finance Toyota).

The Bottom Five

Cooper Murray	26 Laps	Power Steering
Aaron Cameron	50 Laps	Running
Jackson Walls	50 Laps	Running
Jobe Stewart	50 Laps	Running
Macauley Jones	50 Laps	Running

Driver’s Championship

Pos	Driver	Last	Bottom 3	Bottom 5
1T	Jackson Walls	3	5	7
1T	Cooper Murray	3	5	7
3	Aaron Cameron	2	3	7
4	Jobe Stewart	1	5	8
5	Cameron Hill	1	2	2
6T	Matt Payne	1	1	2
6T	David Reynolds	1	1	2
8T	Chaz Mostert	1	1	1
8T	James Golding	1	1	1
10	Macauley Jones	0	5	6
11	Declan Fraser	0	2	4
12T	Kai Allen	0	2	2
12T	Andre Heimgartner	0	2	2
14	Rylan Gray	0	1	4
15	Ryan Wood	0	1	3
16T	Thomas Randle	0	1	1
16T	Broc Feeney	0	1	1
16T	Zach Bates	0	1	1
19	Will Brown	0	0	2
20	Jayden Oeda	0	0	1

Team’s Championship

Pos	Driver	#	Last	Bottom 3	Bottom 5
1	Overdrive/RBR Racing	1	3	5	7
2	Erebus Motorsports	2	4/2	10/2	16/2
3	Blanchard Racing Team	2	3/2	5/2	9/2
4	Brad Jones Racing	3	2/3	7/3	10/3
5	Grove Racing	2	1/2	3/2	3/2
6T	Walkinshaw Andretti United	2	1/2	2/2	3/2
6T	Team 18 Racing	2	1/2	1/2	2/2
8	Premair Racing	2	0	4/2	6/2
9	Dick Johnson Racing	2	0	2/2	5/2
10	Matt Stone Racing	2	0	2/2	2/2
11	Red Bull Racing	2	0	1/2	3/2
12	Tickford Racing	2	0	1/2	2/2

Manufacturer’s Championship

Pos	Manufacturer	#	Last	Bottom 3	Bottom 5
1	Chevrolet	8	6/8	19/8	31/8
2	Ford	11	6/11	15/11	23/11
3	Toyota	5	2/5	7/5	12/5

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How Juniorgeneric defines a Last-Place finisher

Australian V8 LASTCAR'S Official Definition of a "Last-Place Finisher" (LPF)

For the purposes of the Australian V8 LASTCAR championship rankings and statistics, a "Last-Place Finisher" (LPF) is a driver(s) who, after qualifying for a V8 Supercars Championship Points-Paying race, the result must be confirmed from official sources, or unofficial sources failing that. Only one driver (or two in a endurance race) can be classified as the LPF for that race.

Meeting those requirements, the LPF can be any driver classified as such for any reason, including, but not limited to.
1) A "did not start" although it should be noted that there is a difference between my definition of "did not start" and Brock Beard's definition of "Did not Start".
For example, in Bathurst 2015 Chazz Mostert and Cameron Waters' #6 Pepsi Max Ford had a huge accident during practice that injured Mostert and all but wrote off the car. Car #6 was withdrawn, and therefore I don't count Mostert and Waters as finishing last. Under Brock Beard's definition, however, Mostert and Waters would have finished last instead of David Wall and Chris Pither.
2) An entrant who encounters an event once the race has started which prevents the driver(s) from finishing ahead of any other qualified entrants, including both DNFs and drivers who finish under power but laps down*

*Only when all the cars in the race are running ahead of the LPF

3) A decision to “start and park” the driver’s entry (Extremely rare in V8 Supercars)
(4) a disqualification handed down by V8 Supercars and/or track officials that subsequently classifies the driver(s) in the final position behind the unofficial LPF.

Australian V8 LASTCAR shall not consider the LPF as anything else, including but not limited too
1) Any DNQ's
2) Any driver's who's car withdrew before the race start.
3)The lowest-ranked driver who finishes the race under power (unless all cars finished under power, actually quite common in V8 Supercars)
4) A driver(s) who finished last initially, however post-race disqualifications usurped the spot.
5) A driver(s) who may be catagorised as finishing last for exhibition events (I may bring these back at some point in the near future, I need more accurate numbers for the events before I start them up again)
6) Anything in non-V8 Supercar Main game (again, insufficent historical data)
7) A driver who was running last when the checkered flag fell, however because they greeted the checkered flag but a drive who was in front of them at the end of the race, however was not running at the end of the race. In that instance the driver who doesn't finish the race will fall behind the driver whom is still running at the end of the race.

In the rare event where official results or a preponderance of unofficial results are later updated with more accurate information about who was the LPF for that event, Australian V8 LASTCAR rankings and statistics shall be updated to reflect that change.