Officials right to red flag AGP finale, say drivers

Will Brown, Cooper Murray and Garth Tander agree red-flagging the rain-hit Race 7 in Melbourne was the right call.

The MSS Security Melbourne SuperSprint finale was abandoned due to heavy rainfall, after the race initially started behind the Safety Car.

The earlier Formula 3 race was also red-flagged two laps short of its 20-lap distance, and was not resumed.

The Formula 2 Feature Race that was to follow Supercars was also cancelled, as rain continues to wreak havoc with Sunday's schedule.

The rain intensified before the Supercars race, and set in as cars headed to the starting grid. The call was made to start the race behind the Safety Car.

However, the race lasted just two laps before it was suspended, and later declared.

Will Brown, who was 21st in the queue, clinched the Larry Perkins Trophy as a result, and conceded conditions were "really bad" on track.

"I definitely lucked into it this year to be honest," Brown said.

"We had a very poor qualifying for this race, and I'm sorry to all the fans that have come out and watching on TV, we wanted to put on a show, but there were so many puddles out there.

"I think it's one of those things, when you're up the front you can see everything. Me being down the back where I was, you could hardly see anything.

"Everyone is going to have different opinions on it, I don't think many cars would've made it through Turns 7 and 8 on the first lap if we went racing, but who knows, we could've given it a crack.”

Erebus Motorsport rookie Murray, who was third in the queue, added: "It just proves how important qualifying is doesn't it? You never know what's going to happen.

"I think they made the right choice cancelling the race, it was quite bad out there, and especially with the cars having to be in a container by Tuesday morning to go on a ship to New Zealand.

"We probably didn't want to risk any damage to more cars and more repair bills."

As cars lined up in pit lane, the rain eased, but the race was ultimately called off. With time certain set for one lap after 10:53am, there was no chance of awarding points, let alone restarting the race.

Broc Feeney, who led the field, wanted to go racing, given the rain cleared as cars sat in pit lane: "I wanted to go racing, it's not even raining at the moment.

"It's the unfortunate thing about having the short periods of time, but I'm sure everyone has come out here to see some racing.

"It was obviously raining pretty hard there for a sec, but it's cleared up and we've parked it, so it's really disappointing obviously for my car.

“This was our day to make heaps of points, and by the sounds of it no points will be taken from today, so unfortunate for us, and unfortunate for the fans.”

2007 champion Tander, however, insisted that the tight turnaround due to the weekend schedule would have left little opportunity for a race to be conducted, and that the initial red flag call was correct.

“It is a shame to finish the weekend on a downer, because we’ve had such an exciting winner,” Tander said.

“What a surprise that a driver at the front who wanted the maximise the opportunity when two championship contenders are down the back.

“It was raining significantly while the cars were behind the Safety Car. As it always does, it stopped raining as soon as the cars stopped in pit lane.

"We are so tight with the window of time that we have available to get our Supercars race in, that we wouldn't have been able to get the cars going again.

“Ultimately, the right decision was taken to red flag it at the time. We don’t control the weather. We don’t turn the rain on and off."