Deflating Day for Murph

A piece of track debris ripped through his front left tyre. Murphy was unable to steer his car away from the wall and he went straight into the barrier at turn nine.

“I can’t work out what happened, I went through turn seven fine and then went straight into the wall,” Greg Murphy said.

“It felt like I had a puncture. It happened so quickly, there’s a massive rip through the tyre. It looks like someone has taken to it with a blade – the cut is perfectly straight.

“I wasn’t on any kerbs and I made no contact with anything that I can remember. I’ve run over something which has deflated the tyre immediately.

“I’ve had no problems with this corner all weekend. The damage is pretty bad. Not bad in major re-build bad but bad in that it will take several hours to fix and prevented me from getting back out on the track.

“It’s hugely disappointing for this to have happened, particularly at Hamilton.

“So far I haven’t had an ounce of luck here (in Hamilton); we might have to revert back to Pukekohe.”

Jason Bargwanna also had suspension problems requiring time in the garage.

“My front left shock broke early in the race and I had to nurse it,” Bargwanna said.

“I came in for a new front bar but ended up coming in again to have the suspension fixed.

“I was able to get back out there but I ran short of laps in the end which resulted in a DNF.

“We thought we might be right (in terms of laps), and it’s frustrating to effectively finish and not get some points but it was good to keep circulating. I’m a little staved of track time so far this season.

“It’s been a luckless day for the team, I’m confident that tomorrow will be better but it’s hard to stomach when everything fails to go as you wanted it to.

Source: www.sprintgasracing.co.nz