Chaz Mostert penalized after emotional clash with Garth Tander

Ford Performance Racing driver Chaz Mostert has been penalised after clash which sparked high emotions with HRT’s Garth Tander in the third race of the Melbourne weekend.
“I’m a little surprised that Chaz has gotten a penalty – but obviously they (the stewards) have more footage than we have, because we only have the footage from Chaz’s car,” said FPR team boss Tim Edwards to v8supercars.com.

A blame game between the two teams was started after the race, with FPR being strongly critical of Tander.
“Garth (Tander) was just in arse-covering mode because he’d gone off two corners before – Garth was just being overly defensive. Unfortunately Chaz paid the price. It’s just not called for… it’s ridiculous,” said Edwards.

Tander was quick to reply on Edwards’ statements:
”Tim’s full of it. If Tim actually looks at the video he’ll see I actually gave Chaz a bit of room and he still bashed into the back of me,” said Tander.

Mostert was asked the question whether he thought the incident was a part of Tander trying to teach the newcomer a lesson:
”I think some of the older gentlemen don’t really like giving too much room or losing spots early in a race. They have got the experience of racing so many times and they know their race craft a lot better than me, but some of them hold onto their lines a bit tougher than they probably should,” said Mostert.

The stewards did however not take FPR’s line and has docked Mostert with 25 points for the incident with Tander, dropping him from 15th to 23rd position in the event points standings.
”But Jason (Bargwanna, the Driving Standards Observer) did also acknowledge Garth is partly responsible, and he’s had a warning out of it as well. So he’s not totally off the hook. But the reality is, Bargs has made a decision and he’s obviously got a lot more information at hand than we do. But yes – a little surprised,” said Edwards.