Bartley masters challenging Manfeild conditions for pole position while Grammer takes win

Rookie Marcel Bartley mastered challenging conditions at Manfeild – Circuit Chris Amon today to take pole position for the first race of the final round of the Toyota 86 Trophy Series.

The morning’s two 20 minute practice sessions had seen Nathan Grammer and Nieko Scoles top the times, but both Miles Baker and Winter Series leader Toby Elmiger had been fast too.

Occasional light rain ahead of the qualifying session and very cold temperatures made for a challenging session as the ten cars headed out for qualifying.

First to show was Grammer, but times were around five seconds off the morning’s pace initially. Elmiger then popped to the top of the timesheets after seven minutes of the session – breaking the 1 minute 24 second barrier ahead of the rest as the rain continued to fall. 

Behind Toby,  Marcel Bartley, Grammer, Hill, Scoles and Baker were all within a second of each other. Bartley and Grammer then went into the 1 minute 23 second bracket, but by then Elmiger had gone even faster. 

Bartley was the man on the move into the final five minutes of the session, popping in a quick lap sixth time around to go fastest and then backing it up next time around with an even better effort. That was enough to give him almost two tenths of a second advantage with three and a half minutes to go.

Marcel’s battle with Elmiger for top spot intensified as the clock ticked down and both went into the 1 minute 22 q bracket with less than two minutes to go, and that was almost a second ahead of the rest until Nieko Scoles popped up in third place on the timesheets.

At the flag Bartley capped a fine session by taking a few more tenths of a second off his time to leave the pole position mark at an impressive 1 minute 22.369 seconds, just under four tenths ahead of Elmiger.

Third quickest was Elmiger with Baker alongside on the second row. Row three would be Scoles and CareVets Scholarship driver Taylor Mitchell. Behind them Josh Hill and veteran Mark Mallard were seventh and eighth while Mitch Vye and an out-of-sorts Riley Boswell rounded out the ten.

Qualifying Results

Race 1

In a busy but exciting race in cold and slippery conditions, Grammer made his way relentlessly back through the field, passing leader and pole position holder Marcel Bartley at the infield hairpin on the sixth lap to take the lead.

“I got a good initial launch but just that shift into second I got slightly wrong and hit neutral down the straight and watched everyone go by,” he said.

“The car was absolutely on fire today though. This car is absolutely insane in the wet and that helped me get back up to first. It’s great to see Marcel get third too, it was a fun race.”

Bartley was never out of the action in the various battles at the front of the field throughout the ten lap race – including a stint in the lead – but even he probably didn’t expect Riley Boswell to be the one emerging as his major challenger in the closing stages.

Off the pace in qualifying, Boswell was in many respects the man of the race. A great start saw him sixth at the end of the first lap, and he was up to fourth a lap later. He was embroiled in a great battle with Nieko Scoles, Taylor Mitchell and Miles Baker for most of the race until that all came to a head at the start of lap nine when Baker spun wildly – and out of the race – exiting the first turn. 

Boswell emerged in third at the end of that lap and passed Bartley for second on the final lap of the race.

Mitchell survived the drama and his own scrap with Scoles to take fourth, with Nieko in fifth. Mitch Vye came home sixth while Josh Hill was another to recover from an off to make it home in seventh, passing Mark Mallard late on in the race.

In the slippery conditions, Mallard survived a spin on the warm-up lap to make it to the finish in eighth and last of the runners. 

Toby Elmiger looked like a winner early on as he chased and passed Bartley for the lead, but in a moment of cruel luck slowed and stopped out on track almost immediately after taking the lead.

Race Results