Asian Motor Sports

Fabian Coulthard was the man to beat at the second round of the 2006/07 Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge season at Christchurch’s Powerbuilt International Raceway at Ruapuna Park over the weekend.

The 24-year-old Aucklander, who won Australia’s Carrera Cup championship in 2005 and moved to the V8 Supercar class across the Tasman this year, pipped defending series champion Craig Baird for pole position in qualifying in Saturday morning then won two of the three races to claim his first round win of the new season from Baird and fellow former kart star Jody Vincent.

The weather conditions at the annual Mike Pero Motorsport Series meeting could hardly have been more different over the two race days, with high temperatures driven by a hot north-westerly wind on Saturday and a southerly change bringing rain and single digit temperatures on Sunday.

Coulthard drew first blood on Saturday, leading the first race of the weekend, held in hot, blustery conditions on a slick greasy track, from start to finish.

The wily Baird replied with a classy win in the rain in the second race on Sunday morning but Coulthard made the round win his by getting the better of Baird in the reverse top six grid final.

Though it was the impressive Jody Vincent who jinked round slow-away pole sitter Jono Lester and led the 12 lap race final for the first three laps, Coulthard outdragged fellow third row starter Baird into the first corner and once past Vincent edged away to cross the line just over a second ahead of Baird, who in turn had built an eight second buffer on Vincent.

After the final race Coulthard acknowledged that the changeable weather had made it difficult, but stressed that it was the same for everyone.

“When it’s hot it’s hot, and when it’s cold it’s cold, you just have to adapt yourself and your car to the conditions. We were a bit unlucky with the weather, but overall you know, it’s been a great weekend for us.”

It wasn’t too bad a weekend for Baird either, the three-time former New Zealand Grand Prix and 2 Litre Touring Car Championship winner and now two-time winner of the Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge championship, never far from Coulthard in the first and third races and a clear winner of the second.

Jody Vincent also had every reason to be happy, after also claiming the third step on the round podium at the first round of the 2006/07 Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge championship at Pukekohe’s Pukekohe Park Raceway at the beginning of the month.

Of leading the final race for two heady laps he said;

“I got another good start - I seem to be getting off the line very very well - and to be honest, I didn’t even know Jono (Lester, who started from pole position but who bogged down when the lights went out) had a problem. I had already planned to go round him so that line was already there.”

And of being in front of Coulthard and Baird?

“It was good, “ he said. “You learn a lot from being in front of guys like that because they are pushing you along and for me it is all learning which I am taking in and trying to improve with every race.”

And what Coulthard and Bair’s regular series frontrunner Matt Halliday?

The New Zealand A1 Team driver had a weekend to forget after setting the third fastest lap time in qualifying then being forced out of the first race with a broken gearlever.

Though he came back to cross the line third in the wet second race, then inherit second place when Coulthard was given a 5-second time penalty for allegedly jumping the start, the 27-year-old Aucklander spun out of fourth place early in the third race and had to work his way back up through the field to cross the finishing line a hard-won fifth.

Young Jono Lester built on the solid base he created for himself at Pukekohe finishing sixth in the first and second race and seventh in the final.

Behind him Rob Steele, Nick Gordon, local man Paul Kelly and Connel McLaren comprised a mid-field battle pack with Gordon forced out of the first race but enjoying two strong races on Sunday to get the best of Steele and Andrew Bagnall in the first one, and Kelly, Steele and McLaren in the final.

This season the Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge championship series is again one of the lynchpins of MotorSport New Zealand’s premier Mike Pero Motorsport Series programme with seven rounds alongside the Parker ENZED NZ V8s Championship, Toyota Racing Series, Nicibo Production Racing Series and new MINI Challenge.

Each weekend there will be three Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge races, one on Saturday and two on Sunday. Traditionally the third and final race has always been over a longer distance, and this year that format will be enhanced by reversing the grid for the top six starters.

Pukekohe’s Pukekohe Park Raceway hosted the first round of the 2006/07 Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Championship over the November 4/5 weekend with subsequent rounds this weekend at Powerbuilt International Raceway at Ruapuna Park, in January at the new, extended Taupo Motorsport Park at Taupo, February at Feilding’s Manfeild Autocourse, March at Timaru International Raceway and Invercargill’s Teretonga Park then it is back to Pukekohe Park Raceway in April for the grand final at the Placemakers V8 Supercar meeting.

An undoubted highlight this season will be the January 19-21 2007 meeting at Taupo where the Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Championship will be one of the categories supporting the inaugural New Zealand A1GP World Cup of Motorsport round.