The Anton De Pasquale/Lee Holdsworth Chevrolet Camaro during the Bathurst 1000. Photo: Rhys Vandersyde/InSyde Media
De Pasquale and co-driver Lee Holdsworth were cruelly denied victory in Sunday’s Great Race by an under-filled tank.
With less than a lap to go the car slowed approaching Griffins Bend and allowed Brodie Kostecki to snatch victory with Dick Johnson Racing co-driver Todd Hazelwood.
Team 18 has been on the receiving end of intense criticism since the brutal blunder, which team owner Charlie Schwerkolt said was down to “an issue within the team’s fuel strategy software.”
That explanation did not sit well with Skaife, who said more thought should have been given to the final pit stop.
“It’s horrible, but it’s unforgivable. It’s Australia’s biggest car race,” Skaife said on Fox Sports’ MotorRacing 360.
“At your last stop, you have to put the right amount of fuel in. That’s just fundamental, and you have to make it so that you can sprint to the end. So play it out.
“If the Safety Car doesn’t come out, they stop earlier, because you’re going at full race pace. So the Safety Car almost rescued them.
“But the reality is, it is Australia’s biggest car race – and everyone with every bit of brainpower in that organisation needed to be part of the last stop to work out, not just with software and stuff, but the actual calculation.
“You’ve got to go back to fundamentals for the last stop,” he added.
“Yes, a software number that updates after every lap that they’ll have a number to get home by.
“That needs to have, firstly, that flexibility – obviously didn’t have that – the second part is that you go and work it out just with a plan out calculation of what you need to finish the race.
“There’s the math, there’s the simple calculation over here of what you think you need to get to the end, and then there’s predictive software that gives you a guide.
“Now, in the middle of all that, neither of those took place.
“It’s heartbreaking for Australia’s biggest race. I mostly feel sorry for Anton De Pasquale and Lee Holdsworth who drove so well all day and probably should have won that race.
“The reality is, there’s a massive mistake at the end, and you don’t.”
Concerns that Team 18 mightn’t have enough fuel to make it to the end emerged when De Pasquale left pit lane from his pit stop with a 10-second margin over second-placed Zach Bates.
In the closing stanza, Team 18 team principal Adrian Burgess expressed confidence that the team would be able to make it to the finish.
However, their predicament soon reared its head as the call came from Andrew Donnelly to driver De Pasquale to begin saving fuel with 10 laps remaining.
Exactly where the error crept in has not been revealed by the team. Various theories have been floated, including a short fill in the penultimate pit stop being treated as a full fill.
“Probably that’s really when it came up about the margin because they didn’t have that big a gap in terms of fuel over Zach Bates,” Skaife reasoned.
“So probably what they should have had immediately was five seconds, because an extra five seconds of fuel would have got them home.”
“It would have been evident after that.”
Team 18 will have little time to dwell on its demoralising defeat with the Gold Coast 500 taking place on October 23-25.