Luke Youlden declared winner as Todd Hazelwood escapes 260 km/h crash

Luke Youlden was declared winner of the first Supercars Championship co-driver qualifying race at Sandown as the race was red-flagged on the penultimate lap following a massive crash for Todd Hazelwood.

The Brad Jones Racing driver tangled with Tekno Autosports driver Jonathon Webb, resulting in Hazelwood smashing into the wall and into a roll at high speed.

REPLAY 🎞

Todd Hazelwood and Jonathon Webb's crash from all angles. #VASC pic.twitter.com/IY1nPbyl4A

— Supercars (@supercars) September 16, 2017

Hazelwood was fortunately able to walk away unhurt from the spectacular incident.

“When you’re doing 260km/h across the top and get a whack like that you’re just a passenger. My legs were just like a rag doll. It’s been put in for this weekend, so thank you to Supercars for implementing that because without that I don’t know if I’d be standing upright as well as I am right now,” said Hazelwood to supercars.com.

“When I landed I thought ‘I’m going to be sore’ and I couldn’t believe once I unplugged the cool suit and radio and stood up, I was kind of laying down on the seat and trying to move my body around and thought I’m so lucky that I’m fit and could climb out of the car myself and get on with it.”

Youlden headed the race from start to finish ahead of DJR Team Penske driver Alexandre Prémat, who actually was passed by Richie Stanaway just before the red flags. But as the race was stopped prematurely, the results were reversed to the lap before the red flags, Prémat kept second place, with Stanaway third.

Dean Canto crossed the line in fourth for Prodrive Racign Australia, while Paul Dumbrell rounded off the top five for Triple Eight Race Engineering.

The second qualifying race, for the regular drivers, starts at 16:15 local time.