It was a typically blustery Hampton Downs Motorsport Park that greeted the Castrol Toyota Racing Series for Round 3 of the championship.
Joining the Speed Works Events support card were some notable categories, including Formula Ford, Formula First, the V8 Utes and GTRNZ fields. Here’s what went down on Friday.
»»» The morning’s running was earmarked by a rollover for Axel Gnos of Kiwi Motorsport. The incident involved the Swiss driver and Rui Andrade of Angola. Gnos walked away from the incident unscathed. The car was damaged but was repaired in time for the afternoon.
»»» Gnos wasn’t the only driver in trouble. One car suffered a failure during practice, which resulted in oil being left from the second hairpin to the final sweeper. As a result, the Logan Childs Mitsubishi Evolution locked up all four wheels and speared off into the gravel trap. The resulting impact with the tyre wall ended up with Childs on his side. The car was recovered, albeit, heavily damaged.
»»» Petr Ptacek established himself as the man to beat at the end of Friday practice. He clocked a 61.087 for MTEC Motorsport, the fastest time of the day.
»»» Gran Turismo star Igor Fraga was a close second, just 0.006s adrift. Franco Colapinto and Jackson Walls weren’t far behind in third and fourth, less than 0.060s away.
»»» Just 0.170s covered the top eight at the end of the third practice. The field of 17 cars was covered by seven tenths of a second.
»»» Colapinto was consistently quick throughout the day, going first, third and third again across the three practice sessions.
»»» Henning Enqvist failed to appear on Friday supposedly due to illness. The Swede is expected to race on Saturday and Sunday.
»»» Liam Lawson was a notable omission from the top of the standings. He was 17th, 13th and 14th across the three sessions. However, Lawson isn’t concerned about the results going into Saturday morning’s qualifying session.
»»» SsangYong Rhino Racing Series returnee Peter Vodanovich was quickest in the final practice session. Todd Prujean and Mark Mallard were second and third respectively.
»»» The day wasn’t without drama in the SsangYong camp with Christina Orr-West ending the day with a broken front windscreen. The bonnet on her car flew up during practice after the pins weren’t put in.
»»» Andrew Porter was the only driver to go under the 1minute17second bracket. He set a 1:16.811 to be four-tenths clear of Glen Collinson. Matt Spratt and Paul Manuell were third and fourth while series returnee Matthew Griffin was fifth in the quickest session of the day.
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