Photo: supercars.com

Scott McLaughlin crashes at high speed in Sydney test

Last year’s runner-up Scott Mclaughlin crashed at high speed, leaving the track at 200 km/h, during the Supercars test at Sydney Motorsport Park today due to a tyre failure.

“I headed into Turn 1, normal thing, no dramas whatsoever, then the tyre went down and it went straight ahead. I was pushing the pedal, 1,500 PSI, it was doing nothing. I just ended up in the wall,” said McLaughlin to supercars.com.

McLaughlin’s DJR Team Penske Ford Falcon was running on the 2017 specification tyre when one of the front tyres was punctured.

“I think it proves and backs the decision of Supercars to move to the ’16 tyre. We had a ’17 tyre on there. I’m guessing that may be the issue, but we’ll have to work it out,” said McLaughlin.

The Kiwi was able to walk away unhurt from the accident while his car is in need of repairs and will not take part any further in the test.

“It was a decent hit. Thankfully for most of my career I haven’t had a big head-on hit, but that’s the biggest I’ve had. The car and everything did its job as per usual, as did the tyre wall. But it skipped across the gravel pretty easily,” said McLaughlin.