Motorsport: Holden drivers lash 'light' DJR Team Penske Bathurst punishments

The Red Bull Racing team have trashed the decision handed down after the Bathurst 1000 slow down face which had sullied the 2019 edition of the race.

Bathurst winners Scott McLaughlin and Alex Premat have hung on to their result but Fabian Coulthard was dropped to last on the grid.

DJR Team Penske was also hit with a $150,000 fine with another $100,000 suspended until the end of 2021 and lost 300 points in the team series, reducing its lead over the Red Bull Holden Racing Team to 423 points.

The record-breaking sum will go into the Supercars' Fines Fund, which goes towards safety and judicial technology such as Hawk-Eye and the new in-car warning system.

But the entire affair has left a bad taste in the mouth of some of the rest of the championship.

Last week, Erebus Motorsport CEO Barry Ryan demanded the team be disqualified.

He told the Below the Bonnet podcast: "Essentially that team blatantly cheated, I guess, and fixed the race, from that point."

Erebus driver David Reynolds reacted to the news with a pointed clip to an episode of South Park, which essentially said "it does not make sense".

They must have given it the Chewbacca defense #vasc #bathurst1000 https://t.co/FETIL1Khwj

— David Reynolds (@daffidreynolds) October 20, 2019

Now the punishments have been handed down, drivers from the Red Bull Racing team have lashed the decision, with two-time Bathurst champion Garth Tander leading the way.

Tander, who partnered Shane van Gisbergen to second in the great race, told Channel 10's RPM program that DJR barely got a slap on the wrist for the dragging the sport into controversy.

"I feel like still the team has been given a pretty light penalty," Tander said.

"It's a lot of money to everyone sitting at home, $150,000 to pay off the mortgage but in reality — and I'm not privy to the Shell V-Power commercial arrangements but I've seen other commercial arrangements in other teams that I have been part of — that bonuses for winning Bathurst are much larger than $150,000, from one sponsor.

"So I'm not saying it's a small fine — it's a large fine — but the commercial reality of that fine? It's not that big."

Veteran driver Michael Caruso — who partnered Cameron Waters for Tickford Racing — agreed that it wasn't a big fine in Supercars.

It was well short of the maximum $400,000 fine the stewards could have levied at the team.

"It is a team sport and your team can win you the race and they can lose you the race sometimes just as much as you can as a driver, so I think that's where I'm a bit concerned how light it is," Caruso said.

But Tander said he didn't believe the DJR drivers should have lost their positions, lashing the way the Penske team looked after their drivers.

"I don't think that that team, Shell V-Power Racing, has supported its two primary drivers strong enough this week," Tander said.

"One, they've put an asterisk next to Scott's victory with what's happened with the tactics that played out through the race and two, they've clearly thrown Fabs under the bus."