Ford Performance Racing have been left fuming after a post-race decision to deny Mark Winterbottom a podium place at the Gold Coast 600.
Winterbottom passed Holden driver Tim Slade for third in a heart-stopping finale to Saturday's 300km V8 Supercars race at Surfers Paradise.
Shane van Gisbergen won the race from championship leader Jamie Whincup but the pair were joined on the podium by Slade after V8 officials quickly bumped Winterbottom back to fourth for an incident on the final turn, just before the Ford star overtook Slade.
FPR boss Tim Edwards was livid at the call, suggesting the decision had been taken in haste without proper analysis of the incident.
"They got half the facts, they looked at a television screen and made a decision," Edwards told AAP.
"The fact is Tim had lost his tyres and Frosty was catching him at a second a lap and in that last corner he just jumped on the brakes so he really drove himself in the front of Frosty's car rather than the other way around."
The decision means Whincup now holds a 315 point lead over Winterbottom with five races remaining in the 2014 championship.
Edwards says denying the Holden star a sixth V8 title is almost a forlorn hope and his anger has more to do with being denied a podium finish after a tough day.
"Nobody's bothered to investigate it, just made a kneejerk reaction, look like idiots as a category and effectively sterilise the sport," he said.
"I just think it's incompetence."
Van Gisbergen's win comes just 13 days after the New Zealander suffered a heartbreaking starter motor failure while leading the Bathurst 1000 with just nine laps remaining.
The Tekno Autosports driver said the win goes a little way to easing the pain of his Mount Panorama disaster.
"Certainly it helps," he said.
"It makes up for some of it but next year I've got to go back to try and win it."
Whincup said he hadn't seen the last turn incident involving Winterbottom and Slade but said rules on so-called "bump and run" manoeuvres were clear.
"You can't hit someone square and behind and then drive past them," he said.
"Massive move by the category again, changing the podium, I've never seen that but good on them, the big call needed to be made and they did the right thing."
Whincup's other championship rivals, Craig Lowndes and James Courtney, both appear to be out of any contention after disastrous days.
Courtney didn't even get behind the wheel of his Holden Racing Team Commodore after co-driver Greg Murphy's 200th V8s start ended on the starting grid after a collision with Nissan's David Russell.
Lowndes had to settle for an 18th place finish after a late incident damaged his Red Bull Racing Commodore.
The Gold Coast 600 wraps up on Sunday with another 300km race.
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