It has been a rollercoaster day for Kiwi Callum Hedge in the Porsche Carrera Cup North America series at Road America, after retiring from Race 1 on the last lap from second place, but was able to bounce back to take a convincing win in Race 2.
Race 1
Hedge qualified in fourth position for Race 1, and was able to get a clean start to jump up to third within the opening few minutes. After ten minutes, Hedge sat two and a half seconds off the leader Tyler Maxson.
However, the tide soon turned for the Kiwi as he started to make ground on the two cars ahead. Hedge soon closed up to the back of Aaron Jeansomme, and made a great cutback move through Turn 6 to get into second.
Maxson soon started to pull away slightly and the gap to Hedge increased out to two and a half seconds again. While Maxson looked comfortable out front, Hedge also looked fast and looked determined to make up for a difficult qualifying after showing great practice pace.
Hedge soon started to reduce the gap to Maxson, as he got within a second and a half with fifteen minutes to go. Hedge also held the K1 Speed Fastest Lap, going nine tenths quicker than the track record in an amazing feat.
Maxson was then able to return serve and started to increase the gap slowly, with Maxson sitting two seconds ahead with ten minutes to go.
The gap between Maxson and Hedge started to exponentially increase as over the remaining laps, the gap jumped to over five seconds. Unfortunately for Hedge, disaster struck. The Kiwi, whilst in second place, was forced to pull over to the side and retire from the race with a terminal issue. After showing such promising pace throughout the early stages of the race, it was an unfortunate end to the Kiwi’s first race.
However, since Hedge held the fastest lap by the end of the race, this put the Kiwi on pole for Race 2 of the weekend.
Race 2
Starting on pole, Hedge dropped to second off the start, behind Cole Kleck. The Kiwi also tangled with Race 1 winner and championship leader Tyler Maxson into turn 1, with the incident to be reviewed post session. Another incident at the same time brought a full course yellow out, and Maxson limped back to the lane to retire.
The yellow flag was out for ten minutes as Hedge took the restart in second place. The Kiwi looked fast off the restart and quickly trailed Kleck, but his progress was stunted again as the second full course yellow was brought out as the #68 hit the inside wall hard.
The race was neutralised again for ten minutes, with Hedge soon a tenth off the rear of Kleck. Once again, another full course yellow was brought out as two cars got tangled up and ended up in the tyre barriers off turn 6.
The race resumed with eight minutes to go and Hedge was quick to make his move on the leader. It took the Kiwi less than a minute as he worked past Kleck and soon started to pull away. Minute by minute the gap increased, and was soon out to over a second by the start of the final lap.
Hedge kept it clean on the last lap to take the chequered flag and take the win in the second race. Kleck finished in second, and with Maxson retired, helped the Kiwi reduce the gap to the championship leader.
Hedge will take to the track for the replacement Miami race at 1:50am NZST on Sunday.
