BJR expect to fix damaged Blanchard Holden

Brad Jones Racing expects to complete a repair on Tim Blanchard’s Holden following a nasty crash during Saturday’s Adelaide 500 opener.

The Albury team is set for long night as they work to rebuild the #21 Commodore which sustained extensive damage after his race ended in the Turn 8 wall.

Blanchard was fighting for position with Nissan Motorsport’s Simona de Silvestro after the second Safety Car restart with cars side-by-side as they entered the high-speed right hander.

Moments later Blanchard careered into the wall after what appeared to be minor contact with de Silvestro, who tried to file in behind the Holden driver.

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While Blanchard escaped the incident unscathed, the car suffered extensive damage which extends to the chassis rails itself.

However, team owner Brad Jones is confident the car can be fixed but it will require parts from the communal spares truck sent to the track by Triple Eight.

“We’re just going through now. We think it’s fixable but a massive amount of damage,” Jones told Speedcafe.com.

“You could describe it as extensive. It’s everything down the side, from the splitter, it’s had a hard hit at the back.

“Transaxle’s gone, the uprights, just everything down that left side.

“I don’t think any time you hit the wall at Turn 8 you have a minor incident. It’s going to be a lot of work to be done, but the boys are confident that we can get it done.

“Triple Eight have got communal spares, so we’ll obviously need to dip into that to get the car going.

“We’ll try and salvage as much of what we’ve currently got.

“It’s definitely got chassis damage, so they’re going to straighten it up and repair it.

“That’s probably where the question mark is, but they feel like it’s going to be okay.”

It proved to be a challenging day for the team with Nick Percat 12th and Tim Slade coming home in 14th position.