The crash was triggered when James Golding hit a tire bundle at the beach chicane and ended up sideways on the run to Turn 11.
The chain reaction that followed saw a number of cars badly damaged as the track ended up all but blocked.
The race has since been red-flagged.
Worst affected by the crash were Golding, Macauley Jones and Nick Percat, Percat and Jones having made high-speed impact with Golding’s stranded car.
Jones’ Holden subsequently caught fire at the scene of the accident.
Tickford drivers James Courtney and Thomas Randle were also involved, Randle having been first on the scene as he collected the tire bundle hit by Golding.
Others that look to have been taken out of the race include Broc Feeney and Lee Holdsworth, while the likes of Jack Smith, Andre Heimgartner, Tim Slade and more were involved.
Fortunately it appears none of the drivers were injured.
“It’s really unfortunate, I’m disappointed for the team,” said Golding.
“It was my mistake, human error. I got too high on the kerb and when I came out of it, I was too late to recover.
“I’m sorry for all of the other teams and drivers that were involved.”
Jones said: “I’m okay. It was a pretty big impact and then the fire extinguisher going off isn’t a good sign.
“We were all pretty line asters, it was a pretty big train actually and then they all just started slowing down.
“I saw brake lights, that was pretty much all I could see, the back of Nick [Percat]and they all grabbed on the brakes in that last chicane and I pretty much did the same.
“We were both left with nowhere to go and Golding was just sitting there. Nick hit him and I hit Nick up the ass.”
Courtney added: “That’s what we as drivers lobby so hard to get rid of tire bundles, because that’s pretty much what caused it all.
“I’m not sure what happened in front but there were just cars blocking the track. I tried to stop, the initial impact wasn’t too bad but then I got cleaned up from the rear.”
Randle, meanwhile, said he felt lucky his car didn’t cop worse damage.
“I’m just glad everyone else is ok because for me I guess retrospectively we got away with it more unscathed than others,” he said.
“It was absolute chaos. For me it started two laps before when I was just getting drilled by Anton [De Pasquale]I don’t know if he was getting drilled by [Mark] Winterbottom, but I nearly lost it and I lost three spots.
“That put me behind [Golding] and then he’s had a moment in that last right-hander of the chicane, lost the rear and then cleaned up the tire bundles.
“I just took the normal line but unfortunately the bundle ended up on the track and I just had nowhere to go, drilled that, destroyed the front splitter and the car had no aero, was up so high and hit the righthand wall.”
