In the past three years Supercars great Jamie Whincup has had plenty of luck at Mount Panorama.
Unfortunately for the four-time Bathurst 1000 champion, all of it has been bad and it seems the six-time Supercars champions fortunes have not changed.
Whincup, 34, surprisingly missed out on Saturday’s Top 10 Shootout for this weekend’s Great Race after a red flag prematurely ended his scorching lap.
He will start from 11th on Sunday’s grid.
The Holden great looked set to break into the top 10 and book a shootout berth when he came thundering down the mountain with just seconds left in Friday’s 40-minute qualifying session.
Then James Moffat hit the wall at the Dipper, ensuring the session ended promptly under the red flag and Whincup’s last gasp effort wouldn’t count.
To add further insult, Whincup had earlier watched his Mount Panorama lap record eclipsed by a whopping 0.76 of a second by Ford’s Scott McLaughlin (two minutes, 04.14 seconds) at Friday’s practice session.
It all added to Whincup’s recent woeful run on the mountain.
In 2014 he defied team orders, refused to conserve fuel and went for the win, eventually spluttering to fifth.
In 2015, Whincup again earned his team’s ire when he ignored instructions to pit and instead kept driving only to accidentally pass the safety car and finish 18th.
Last year was possibly the most cruel.
Whincup crossed the line first but finished 11th due to a 15-second penalty for his role in a spectacular crash vying for the lead with McLaughlin and Holden’s Garth Tander in the dying laps.
Whincup clearly can’t afford another slip-up. He is second in the championship just 84 points behind leader McLaughlin.
But Whincup has refused to point the finger after his latest setback as he planned to bounce back in Sunday’s 161-lap classic.
“I’m not going to give you a hard-luck story,” he told reporters.
“We had plenty of opportunity to go fast and we didn’t go quick.
“It’s amazing, it’s not much (difference in times) and ‘boom’, you’re out of the 10.
“That’s the reality of this game, it’s crazy competitive.”
Whincup said he had no choice but to-fine tune his Holden at Saturday’s practice session before having a crack at a fifth King of the Mountain title the next day.
After his qualifying hiccup, Whincup will be forced to watch the shootout – which decides the top 10 grid positions – trackside on Saturday.
“We’ve got to try to find some pace at practice, maximise that one and then roll on Sunday,” said Whincup.
“There’s no point of going into detail of where it (the car) is (lacking) but looking at the sector times we’re down everywhere.”
The shootout starts at 5.10pm.
