Speedy New Zealander Andre Heimgartner is enjoying a career year in the Repco Supercars Championship, having collected his sixth podium of the 2023 season this past weekend in Sydney.
Heimgartner qualified on pole for the opening race of the weekend under the lights at the Beaurepaires Sydney SuperNight, and after an untimely Safety Car scuppered his bid for victory in Race 18, the 28-year old rebounded with a second-place finish in Sunday afternoon’s Race 19 at Sydney Motorsport Park.
Now in his second season with Albury-based Brad Jones Racing, Heimgartner has four podiums in the last six Supercars races, and sits sixth in the Supercars standings between established stars Chaz Mostert and Cam Waters.
The Gold Coast-based Kiwi, who became a father earlier this year to daughter Summer with fiancé Jemma, has yet to score his first race win with BJR, but is confident a visit to the top step is a matter of “when”, not “if”.
That win could come at Supercars’ next stop on the 2023 calendar, the OTR SuperSprint in South Australia, where Heimgartner has experienced both the highest of highs and lowest of lows.
The Kiwi scored his first career win at the event in 2021 with a dominant display in the wet, but found the opposite fortunes in 2022 when he was involved in a frightening first lap crash when he drove unsighted into the back of Thomas Randle’s stalled car.
Both drivers escaped injury and will be in action when Supercars heads to The Bend Motorsport Park for its eighth event of the 2023 season, August 18-20.
The OTR SuperSprint hosts Races 20, 21, and 22 of the current championship, which will be the first races in South Australia for the new-for-2023 Gen3 Supercars.
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