V8 Supercar drivers have been warned they will be disqualified from qualifying at the Clipsal 500 Adelaide tomorrow (Saturday) if they kerb hop.
Chief Steward Steve Chopping said a tyre bundle had been installed at turn four to combat issues of excessive kerb hopping in the past, but it had “concentrated” the problem at turn two, where it was too dangerous to place a tyre bundle.
A scale of penalties was implemented for practice today but drivers caught kerb hopping turn two tomorrow for qualifying automatically face disqualification.
“Any breach results in the loss of your fastest time,” Chopping said.
“You don’t get a warning in qualifying, it’s sudden death; down comes the guillotine.
“The lesson is, stay off the kerbs. It will be reinforced at a briefing early in the morning.”
Chopping said an experienced marshal would be in place to report kerb hopping and constant television focused on turn two closely monitored.
“To incur a breach of the rules and the instructions a driver must go fully off the road, that is all four wheels beyond the yellow edge line and in turn two that involves four wheels being on the kerb,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter where your wheels are as long as you have got two on the bitumen but if you have got four off the bitumen, you are not racing on the track.
“It pulls the footpath apart, it pulls the back of the kerb apart, it pulls rubbish on to the road and it makes it dangerous for everyone.”
The scale of penalties applied today included a warning over the radio to drivers for the first offence, the bad sportsman ship flag shown for the second offence, being sidelined for two minutes for the third breach and then exclusion from the session.
Five drivers including the fastest man on the track today, TeamVodafone’s Jamie Whincup, were forced to park their cars for two-minutes in the session.
 “We noticed that Jamie Whincup was a persistent offender and we saw that for instance his first sector time was about 29.9sec when he jumped the kerb and on a later lap when he didn’t jump the kerb his sector time was significantly quicker at about 29.2 or 29.3sec,” Chopping said.
“The instruction is, stay off the kerbs. It’s too difficult to work out whether a person has gained an advantage or has not gained an advantage.
“There’s a perception that an advantage is being gained; maybe that’s not a right perception but the instruction is clear, stay off the kerbs.”
Chopping also said there were drivers including The Bottle-O Racing’s Paul Dumbrell, who was third fastest today, who did not breach the rule once and was able to post quick times.