The first outing of Tasman Motorsport's new VY Commodore at Queensland Raceway ended in 𓆏disappointment as a small fire in the car's airbox forced driver Jason Richa🌠rds to retire from the Queensland 300.

Richards starteꦫd the sixth round of the V8 Supercar Championship from 29th but was a major beneficiary of a first-lap pile-up involving five carཧs in front of him. By the time the debris cleared and the race restarted on Lap 11, Richards was up to 20th position.

After pitting for tyres on lap 40, Richards said he "banged" the accelerator as he exited the pit lane,💞 possibly sending a rush of petrol into the airbox that ignited a small fire that was ex꧂tinguished in pit lane.

"It was no fault of the car - I probably banged the pedal on the pit lane exit, and that's what h🃏appens. You just can't do that," he said. "We'll take it back home and have a good look at it, but I expect that's what it was.

"We've struggled a bit for set-up this weekend but we were actually g🌼oing okay today. We really wanted a finish today as a platform to get our season moving in the right direction so it's tough to take when some thing like this happens."