Whincup crashes out of the Bathurst 1000

The Triple Eight driver was scrapping over fourth place with Brodie Kostecki and Chaz Mostert when he ran wide at The Cutting and hit the wall on Lap 33.

His Red Bull Holden was out of the race on the spot, sparking the first Safety Car of the race.

"Obviously Brodie was making it pretty difficult out there – that’s not his fault, he’s entitled to go as hard as he can and was doing nothing untoward," explained Whincup.

"I was pushing hard to get through and to try to get up the road and on reflection I think I smoked the rears pretty heavily out of The Chase trying to get through and I probably underestimated the surface temp going into The Cutting.

"In hindsight I should have just waited another lap, I probably would have got him back down at Conrod on the next lap.

"I’m disappointed for everyone. I’m fine but obviously everyone has put in a lot of effort here in this garage and engineers in particular, they deserve better."

Co-driver Craig Lowndes, who'd just hopped out of the #888 entry, was philosophical about the crash.

"It's one of those places that you have to have respect for," he said. "We've all made mistakes here.

"It's a shame, the car was working extremely well.

"It's difficult because you want to get around cars, and as soon as you're half a car length wide going into The Cutting it's dirty there."