ONE of the biggest scandals in Bathurst history came as a total shock to the co-driver of the car in the spotlight.
It was Lap 135 of the 2019 Great Race when a Safety Car was called for the beached Walkinshaw Andretti United wildcard of Alexander Rossi and James Hinchcliffe, triggering a flurry of activity in the pitlane.
Then came the unforgettable scenes whereby third-placed Fabian Coulthard was trundling down Conrod Straight with a train of cars on his tail, as Jamie Whincup and Scott McLaughlin ahead sped away.
The outcome was mixed for DJR Team Penske: McLaughlin went on to win, while Coulthard was handed a drive-through penalty and relegated from sixth to 21st post-race.
DJRTP was also fined $250,000 (of which $100,000 was suspended) and docked 300 teams’ championship points as stewards concluded that radio communications to Coulthard – including the mispronunciation of ‘debris’ – were evidence of speaking to a script.
While the spotlight was very much on Coulthard and DJRTP, likeable veteran Tony D’Alberto had seen a possible second Bathurst 1000 podium descend into a nightmare.
“That was a shit day, it really was,” D’Alberto reflected on Part 2 of his V8 Sleuth Podcast episode.
“I say this with my hand on my heart, unless Fabian was in a different meeting or prebrief to what I was, there was never any discussion about ‘if this happens, we’re going to say this and we want you to slow down and do this’ or whatever.
“Never, ever. Unless I just wasn’t part of that conversation. So it was as big a surprise to me as it was to everyone.
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“I remember being in the motorhome, I’d done my stints, we were looking good. I think Scott was first and we were third; cool, double podium, happy days.
“I remember the Safety Car came out and Scott and Jamie go blasting down the straight and I’m looking and I’m looking, they’ve come out of the Elbow… it seemed like an eternity and then Fabs comes and he has got the whole field backed up behind him.
“I’m like, what are we doing? What is going on? Do we have a problem?
“I remember running from the motorhome to the pits and I went up to Ryan Story and I said, ‘what is going on? We’re going to get in trouble for this, aren’t we?’
“To start with, I was just trying to work out what’s going on. I know as good as anybody, if you back the field up like that, you’re going to get in trouble.
“And it was said to me, ‘don’t worry about it, all good, we’ll be fine’. So I believed them; these are my bosses who I have got a huge amount of respect for, so you go, ‘no worries, no dramas’.
“And then obviously it all went down, Fabian pitted. There was literally team owners running out in pitlane swearing at Fabian as he’s coming down because they knew what was happening.”
From there, the fallout was inevitable, including a late night for Coulthard post-race dealing with the stewards and reporting to the Team Penske hierarchy.
“It was very, very serious. I wasn’t part of any of that, I wasn’t brought into it whatsoever. I was like the forgotten soul of the whole thing,” said D’Alberto.
“Like I didn’t play a part in it but I can look you in the eye and honestly say that there was nothing in the lead-up or anything like that that ‘this is what we’re going to do’ or ‘we’re going to help Scott’. Nothing.
“It was really crap. And then you get back home after a weekend like that, we were in a podium position until that point and then you’ve basically been part of one of the most controversial finishes to a race, blamed by a lot of people; it’s not really a very nice feeling.”
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D’Alberto and Coulthard remain close friends to this day, and raced as teammates in TCR Australia last year.
Both will be co-drivers in the 2023 Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000, D’Alberto paired with Anton De Pasquale at DJR and Coulthard with Nick Percat at WAU.