Bob McMurray Toyota Racing New Zealand Ambassador, writes from the opening TRS round at the Mike Pero Motorsport Park, Ruapuna (Christchurch)…….
So, what a difference a day makes!
Cold and windy compared to previous days with not a very bright outlook for either today or Sunday. However, with my track record of forecasting it will probably turn out to be a balmy 30c. (Written at 08.00 hrs at the track).
And it kind of did, so once again that will be the end of my forecasting. Humid and hot (written at midday). End of story.
This is one of the little reports where pretty much nothing, in an adverse sense, happened but was a very exciting two qualifying sessions.
As in past years qualifying was split with Q#1 for race #1 (today) and Q#2 was for race #3, the Lady Wigram Trophy event.
All the cars were on new tyres for both sessions.
A very tight pair of sessions in both the time on track and the competitiveness between certainly the first 12 cars which were all within one second of the fastest time.
The second session was even closer with the first fifteen cars within that one second bracket and Jehan Daruvala got that pole position, in front of Kiwi Marcus Armstrong, by the very slimmest of margins. Just 1/1000th of a second.
The timing system commonly used in motorsport doesn’t spilt the times any further so it could not have officially been closer.
Some consolation for Marcus though. The second place grid slot at this track very often offers more grip than the pole position and will perhaps help to give him a better start.
Kami Laliberte lost valuable track time, out of the fifteen minutes scheduled, due to a loose suspension part on his car that needed attention.
Once on the track though that was forgotten and he got into 11th position in Q1.
Once again the session was red flagged with just four minutes to go due to a car stranded on track so the last minute dash was a bit frantic.
Good fun to watch though.
It is worth saying here that all the TRS cars are now carrying a touching tribute to the late Chris Amon MBE.
Chris was a huge supporter of both young Kiwi talent and the Toyota Racing Series itself as well as being patron of the recently formed ‘Kiwi Driver Fund’
Top ten qualifiers for tomorrow’s (Sunday) 20 lap Lady Wigram Trophy race.
1. Daruvala, 1.16.800;
2, Armstrong, 1.16.801;
3, Ahmed, 1.16.866;
4, Piquet, 1.17.067;
5, Cockerton, 1.17.070;
6, Verschoor, 1.17.072;
7, Randle, 1.17.164;
8, Habsburg, 1.17.471;
9, Andres, 1.17.536;
10, B Leitch (Cromwell) 1.17.549.
Race #1 of the weekend.
Exactly what was hoped for.
Great racing, close moves, a safety car period, a win on debut by a rookie and competition all the way down the field.
After a slightly hesitant start from second grid position, Kiwi TRS rookie Marcus Armstrong dutifully followed pole sitter Jehan Daravula for a few laps until the almost inevitable safety car interruption to recover and re-start the car of Kory Enders after he had stalled on track after a spin.
The safety car came in after just a couple of laps with the field now closed up and by his own admission Daravula didn’t handle that re-start quite as well as Armstrong who managed to get into the slipstream of the lead car as the field rushed to the first corner.
Armstrong managed to hold the outside line around the corner and emerged narrowly in the lead.
Good driving by both of the M2 Competition teammates who showed each other enormous respect and gave racing room, just enough perhaps but room nonetheless.
Behind them the positions all the way down to last place were being disputed, argued over and fought over from the very beginning to the end of the race.
A great start to the season for Armstrong and an equally great start to 2017.
The final results were …..
1 Marcus Armstrong, 2 Jehan Daruvala, 3 Richard Verschoor, 4 Thomas Randle, 5 Taylor Cockerton, 6 Pedro Piquet, 7 Ferdinand Habsburg, 8 Enaam Ahmed, 9 Brendon Leitch, 10 Kami Laliberte, 11 Shelby Blackstock, 12 Keyvan Andres, 13 Amey Vaidyanathan, 14 Harry Hayek, 15 Luis Leeds, 16 Thomas Neubauer, 17 Christian Hahn, 18 Jean Baptiste Simmenauer and the final finisher in 19th position Kory Enders.
Nikita Lastockin endevoured to lose his front wing while driving under safety car conditions and had to abandon ship in the infield.
Bring on the season, bring on tomorrow, it’s going to be a blast.
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