Erebus explains $10,000 appeal oversight
Erebus CEO Barry Ryan says the Supercars appeal rules should better protect teams from wasting money on unappealable decisions.
Erebus fell foul of the appeal rules on Sunday evening following the second leg of the Gold Coast 500.
The team wanted to a review into a 15-second time penalty handed to Will Brown for his part in contact that left Scott Pye nosed into the wall at Turn 11.
The penalty dropped Brown from eighth on the road to 11th in the final classification.
Erebus lodged a notice of intent to appeal with Motorsport Australia following the race and paid the associated $10,000 fee.
However on Monday it was made aware that, as per rule B7.7.1 of the Supercars Operations Manual, teams have no right of appeal against in-race penalties.
Reflecting on the Erebus appeal bungle on Sunday, Ryan admitted that appealing an unappealable penalty was an oversight.
It was a costly oversight, too, with the $10,000 non-refundable despite there being no avenue for appeal.
That is something that should be reviewed according to Ryan, who wants better protection for teams when it comes to lodging appeals.
"I had forgotten the rule that you couldn’t appeal an in-race penalty which is crazy," Ryan told the Castrol Motorsport News podcast.
"We should have just been notified straightaway that, ‘thanks for your notice of intent to appeal but as per B-whatever it is in the rules, you can’t appeal’, and then they could have just wiped it there and then.
"Instead, they did nothing and now they have taken our $10,000 – so far."
When asked if in-race penalties should be appealable, Ryan added: "I don’t know, the way they must look at it is if we get it earlier in the race before our pitstops we would have served it, so then you’ll have people ignoring serving it in the pitstop to make sure they get to the end of the race and fight it.
"I guess that’s what they are trying to avoid, that people don’t ignore it and then fight it later. That’s the only thing I can think of."
As for the penalty itself, Ryan said he wanted to appeal as he felt it was nothing more than a racing incident.
At the time of the contact Brown was at the back of a four-way scrap for sixth place with Pye, Cam Waters and Mark Winterbottom.
"There was four cars fighting over the same bit of track and they’re all checking up and dodging each other and sometimes somebody gets turned," said Ryan.
"Pye turned across to try to get up the inside of Waters behind Winterbottom and then he had to brake and Will was right there on his bumper. [Pye] braking is what made Will touch him.
"It wasn’t like Will did anything irresponsible or careless, it's just a racing incident. But it’s not the way [race control] viewed it."
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