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<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cBasically, within thousandths of a second \u2013 a millisecond \u2013 the kangaroo showed up on the left,\u201d he told selected media, including V8 Sleuth. \u201cThe moment I saw it was the impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I\u2019m glad that we have such a safe racecar. It could\u2019ve been much worse; if I imagine the whole kangaroo could have come inside \u2013 well, half of it did come inside.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m glad I\u2019m standing here now.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt must have been very quick and just sudden because there was no pre-warning, no yellow flags or nothing, no radio message that there\u2019s a kangaroo near the track, so I got caught by surprise, I think like everyone else, otherwise you would have slowed down.\u201d<\/p>\n
The impact was bad enough; then Mies had to figure out how to get the wounded Mustang safely stopped on the fastest part of the circuit, in the dark and blinded by blood.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe issue was that I couldn\u2019t see anything anymore. The windshield was fully smashed, and I was covered in blood and whatever is inside a kangaroo,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy eyes were full of blood and guts from the kangaroo, so I had to clean them first because I had no idea where I was.<\/p>\n
\u201cI looked through the side window, saw a wall and tried to go as close as possible to the wall on the left side.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw the cars still coming from the rear, so I wanted to be in a safe place as much as possible, (so) that someone doesn\u2019t see me and hits me again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The TV coverage showed a dazed Mies standing beside the car in the aftermath, but the German ace says he wasn\u2019t in shock.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just had to throw up because the smell was incredible. I\u2019ve already had two showers and I still have the smell in my nose,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can tell you the inside of a kangaroo doesn\u2019t smell very nice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mies\u2019 incident was the worst in Bathurst 12 Hour history so far, but it is far from the only one.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t even the only one in 2026; sunrise revealed that several other cars sported damage from contact with kangaroos in the dark early laps, albeit with less severe consequences than Mies\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, I think we should think about maybe having a later race start,\u201d he suggested.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe instead of 5:50 in the morning, maybe something like 7-ish or 8 o\u2019clock and finish later, or put on some big fences.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the end, we all want to race, right? And if we crash, we crash; the race is over. But to end the race because you hit an animal on track is never nice, especially in the first 10 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adding to Mies\u2019 disappointment was that he was getting a good feeling from the car in his brief time in the race.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe car felt mega,\u201d he said. \u201cI made up already two spots at the start and I had the feeling I had better pace than the Merc in front of me.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe really struggled for grip. Maybe had lower tire pressures or whatever, but we really were on it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was surprised that they were not really going away on top of the mountain, and I was still taking it easy, so it was all very positive.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven over the radio, I said, \u2018guys, the race car is pretty good\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously fuel is a big topic here in Bathurst, fuel strategy. You can already see that a lot of guys were doing lift and coast early in the race, so I just did the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think with all the chaos afterwards (ed: multiple Safety Cars in the early hours), obviously strategy comes into play and I think we are pretty good at that at HRT and Ford Racing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The early exit also means minimal race data from which to plot next year\u2019s campaign, which will happen with the Evo version of the Mustang that debuts elsewhere in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe if we don\u2019t win or be on the podium, it doesn\u2019t matter; I would just love to do the whole race, learn for next year, see where our strength and our weakness is,\u201d Mies said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, it\u2019s our first time here with the car, so every lap counts. So that\u2019s probably the most disappointing part.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NOT even two showers could fully erase the smell of kangaroo from Christopher Mies\u2019 nostrils. The factory Ford…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-480818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}