Photo: Richard Gresham
Murray, on his first weekend with the team since switching from Erebus Motorsport, pitted out of seventh place with five laps remaining for a third fuel stop.
That came five laps after Erebus Motorsport pitted Jarrod Hughes for the same reason, the combination of which lifted fellow Chevrolet driver Anton De Pasquale above the Finals cut-line.
Supercars later confirmed both Camaros did need more fuel, while GM motorsport boss Simon McNamara dismissed any suggestion the pit stops were orchestrated to help De Pasquale.
“Believe you me, it had nothing to do with that,” Dane told Speedcafe.
“You can come up with conspiracy theories all you like; the fact is that we absolutely and utterly fucked up and I’m furious about it, as I’m sure they are next door (at Erebus) as well.
“We did not put enough fuel in the car and unfortunately it was by such a margin that there was no way you were going to fuel-save to the end.
“If we had both put enough fuel in and we’d finished somewhere in the 10 and Anton finished further back, well so be it.
“That’s what it is. We’re not going to back off just to get him through to the next stage, I can promise you.
“I mean, we’re not going to deliberately get in his way, but we’re certainly not going to be doing that.”
Incredibly, the fuel saga came just one event after De Pasquale ran out of fuel while leading on the last lap of the Bathurst 1000.
While Team 18 blamed its software for its Bathurst blunder, Dane was a little more blunt in his explanation.
“It was a total and utter fuck-up. It won’t happen again,” he said.
“But a total, utter fuck-up trying to be digital when you should be analogue.”
The two Camaro pit stops appeared strategically timed as they occurred directly after Chaz Mostert dropped back to allow teammate Ryan Wood through to third, bumping De Pasquale out of the finals.
Dane said his team had hung on hoping for a Safety Car.
“We looked at it: ‘can we save the fuel’ and worked out it was a complete waste of time,” he said.
“We had hoped there was a Safety Car bigger than Ben-Hur and it didn’t happen, so we had to pit.”