Jackson Culver heads into Australia’s Formula 4 Gen 1 championship decider at Queensland Raceway this weekend with a narrow one-point advantage after a season-long three-way fight for the title.
The North Canterbury teenager led the series after the opening round but had slipped back to third before winning the penultimate round in Adelaide to regain the lead and set up the final showdown.
A late switch from Sydney Motorsport Park to Queensland Raceway for the finale sees the Formula 4 cars return to Ipswich for the first time in many years, where most teams have done little or no testing.
For most teams, the Wednesday official test day will be their only chance to get on track before Friday practice, the double qualifying sessions and three races over the weekend.
This may help Culver who hasn’t been able to test at the Australian tracks outside of race week apart from on his home simulator.
“A really bumpy track, it looks simple but it’s very technical. I think it’ll be hard, but it could also work to our advantage with how much simulator testing we’ve done and how little everyone in the Gen 1 category’s actually done at the track,” said Culver.
The nature of a bumpy circuit makes it tricky to get the car down low without hitting the bumps.
“Bottoming out is a huge one, especially going through the corners if we bottom out it could lead to understeer but also snap oversteer which could be quite bad going through turns one and two when you’re over 150kph, quite fast and flowing. It’s really unsettling for the car.”
For the four previous rounds the AU4 organisers held a Thursday test day at each venue to avoid extra costs. This dovetails into the normal Friday meeting practice sessions, but at Queensland Raceway the test day was shifted to a day earlier.
“Usually the Thursday is quite jam-packed, so the Wednesday will be as well. If anything it’s probably a bit better, gives us a bit of a break in between and a day to chill back out and get ready for the actual weekend and have a good shot at it.”
Culver enters the final round with the single point advantage over second-year driver Koby Wilson and 13 points over fellow rookie Lewis Gotch. With such a close points spread, winning the extra point awarded for each qualifying session could also prove vitally important come the end of the final race.
“With the one-point advantage, having clean races makes a huge difference. Having one bad race ruins your entire shot at the championship, so a clean race is always a good race, but obviously wanting to go for those wins as well.
“The poles will be a very important play especially at this track as well, given that it’s quite a hard track to pass on.”
Culver is the only one of the top three drivers to win two rounds so far, with Wilson and Gotch one each. The Rangiora High School student is aiming to add to his tally in Queensland.
“Obviously winning. A win in the series but also the round. To be honest I’d be happy with a nice, decent, clean round.”
While Culver fights to retain the lead in the Gen 1 class, fellow Kiwi teenager Marco Manson holds a 16-point lead in the overall AU4 championship in the newer Gen 2 cars. Both will be hoping for a Kiwi double this weekend.
Header Image: Supplied
