Scott McLaughlin calls for Jason Bright to be excluded

The incident close to the finish of race three at Sydney Motorsport Park between Jason Bright and Shane van Gisbergen has sparked controversy post-race with Scott McLaughlin, who finished behind the two, calling for Bright to be excluded.

Bright was tapped into a spin by van Gisbergen and the Brad Jones Racing driver took a shortcut to rejoin the circuit again ahead of both van Gisbergen and McLaughlin.

“If you get spun out – I can understand it sucks for Brighty and I’m not having a go at Brighty himself – but you get spun out, if it was any other corner on this track, he wouldn’t be able to cut the track. But it just so happens there’s a short-cut up there and he could cut the track … If I’d spun out at turn one, I was screwed. I feel like it’s pretty black and white but he probably should get some sort of penalty for it,” said McLaughlin to v8supercars.com.

Should Bright and van Gisbergen be excluded due to the shortcut and incident, it could elevate McLaughlin from fifth to third.

“I don’t feel hard done by, I think something should be done. I’m happy with fifth place but at the end of the day someone’s cut the track, finished third,” said McLaughlin.

No penalty has so far been handed out for the shortcut and Bright, who finished third, points to one of the races at Hidden Valley where David Reynolds was left without a penalty after a making mistake while leading where he took a shortcut.

“If David Reynolds can make a mistake and make a short-cut in Darwin then what I did was no worse than that. I have seen plenty of other guys do it over the years and not get a penalty so I don’t see why we would be any different. I would be very surprised if we get disqualified and I would be very disappointed,” said Bright.

Van Gisbergen took blame for the incident at Sydney Motorsport Park today and said that he felt Bright should keep third.