Van Gisbergen retains controversial Adelaide pole
Shane van Gisbergen will start the first leg of the Adelaide 500 from pole position after being cleared of a track limits infringement by the stewards.
Photo by: Edge Photographics
The Kiwi's pole-winning Shootout lap was called into question by stewards earlier today, resulting in a post-session war of words between Triple Eight boss Roland Dane and his counterpart at DJR Team Penske Ryan Story.
After almost two hours of deliberation from the stewards its now been decided that van Gisbergen will keep his pole position for the season-opening race.
"Following the Session the DRD investigated suspected breaches of Sch B2 Article 3.3 of the Code of Driving Conduct (deliberately exceeding track limits and gaining an advantage on rejoining) by all Cars competing in the Session," read the stewards report.
"In the course of the investigation, the DRD reviewed the broadcast footage of all ten Cars in the Session, together with incar footage and still images, and determined that none of these matters warranted referral to the Stewards."
On hearing the decision, Dane said that "clearly" common sense had prevailed.
"There's no performance advantage," said Dane.
"Just because some bloke, when he painted the line, decided to straighten out a tiny kink in the concrete line when it should be consistent all the way down... anyway, anybody who has any background in motorsport knows that what you're really looking for is infringements on the inside of the corner, unless there's an offset corner going the other way.
"If there is no advantage gained then why would you get excited? It's fairly straightforward.
"It'll be history in an hour when the race starts. Then who cares what happened in qually, pole position, shootout?"
Story declined to speak on the record when approached by assembled media.
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