Scott Pye excluded from five races

Scott Pye has been excluded from five V8 Supercars races as the stewards discovered the Dick Johnson Racing team to have removed the seals for the engine ballast on his Ford Falcon.

“It’s really clear what you can and can’t do in the rules and we’ve made a mistake during the busy preparation to get three cars ready to go to Homebush. The victim at the end of the day is Scotty Pye, we’ve really let him down on this one and it’s not good enough,” said a team spokesperson to speedcafe.com.

“We must do a better job. We’re better than this and we have apologised to him as a team. Unfortunately the punishment for a team offence here has an impact on the driver, but that’s how it is.”

The ballast seals were last checked at Bathurst, meaning that Pye’s results from Gold Coast, Phillip Island and this weekend’s season finale in Sydney are removed.

The penalty means that Pye drops from 16th to 19th in the drivers’ championship.