Officials investigating Supercars driver Fabian Coulthard’s controversial Bathurst 1000 safety car tactics will release their decision this weekend.
The Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) said a hearing would be held on Saturday.
It will release the outcome on Sunday, seven days after reigning Supercars champion – and Coulthard’s Ford teammate – Scott McLaughlin won Bathurst with co-driver Alex Premat.
Coulthard was initially slapped with a drive-through penalty after he dramatically slowed down and held up the field behind McLaughlin, who went on to claim his maiden Great Race.
But Coulthard, who is third in the series standings after placing sixth, faces a fine or loss of championship points after stewards had ordered his DJR Team Penske outfit to face a hearing on the Gold Coast.
Officials will investigate whether Coulthard’s actions influenced the outcome of the race after if he had followed team orders to slow down.
McLaughlin is not set to be stripped of his first Bathurst victory, but governing body CAMS has confirmed the 2019 Bathurst 1000 results remain provisional until the hearing.
The inquiry was triggered – according to the post-event stewards summary – after suspicion arose that the team might have “issued an instruction to the Driver of Car #12 (Coulthard) to slow and create an unwarranted large gap between Cars #17 and Car #12 for tactical reasons”.
Stewards also cited an in-race interview by team managing director Ryan Story, as well as the “extraordinary increase” in the gap between #17 and #12 during the Safety Car deployment, to “hold concerns that Rule D24.1 may have been breached”.