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VIDEO – SMP Shannons Nationals (July 13 – 15)
Qualifying and Race One Report
The track at Sydney Motorsport Park was dry under a sunny sky for qualifying, the car felt great, tuned in well from the practice set-up and responding well to the new tyres. There was very little time separating the leaders and we weren’t quite up there but we did manage to qualify ninth outright and fourth in our class with a P9 on the grid.
Race One
The start was aborted due to an unfortunate brake problem with Adam Gills car. After a second warm-up lap I managed to stick the start and round the first turn with the rest of the pack. After that it was head down trying to shave seconds off the laps times and keep up with the national drivers. It was a clean race with one safety car period after Jordan Skinner had a quick spin on the final corner. The Snake Racing/AGI SPORT F3 car had an excellent race set up with the car feeling tight and responsive from start to finish. I ended the race up 2 spots in P7 to finish 3rd in class. Tomorrow I want to concentrate on another clean race with a refined car set-up to gain more speed around the track.
FEATURED – Gotch Wins Round 3 at Sydney Motorsport Park
Round 3 of the RACE Magazine NSW Racing Car Championship gave the open-wheelers their first outing on the new Sydney Motorsport Park ‘Long Circuit’. The extended layout starts from turn 6 and adds 800 meters of tight and twisty track, characterised by a close sequence of direction changes, blind crests and a hairpin that caught out several competitors over the course of the weekend. Re-entering the old circuit at turn 8, the new layout extends the lap to 4.5 kilometres, and while it might take time to love it is certainly challenging from the outset.
DRIVERS REPORT – NSW State Round 3 (June 9 – 10)
Qualifying
Went out for qualifying on a beautiful sunny day with barely a breath of wind, no issues with the weather. During the opening lap the car felt quick and responsive with no major issues. However after our first flying lap, an incident prompted a red flag adding pressure to try and get another flying lap in with the reduced time left to us. The all clear was given within minutes and in the end we got seven laps of green flag racing. The new Sydney Motorsport Park extended track was an enjoyable challenge to drive with undulating turns and highly cambered corners. Turn 11 was particularly confronting with the new green bitumen surface but we managed to keep the car on the track. In the end we qualified P1 in a lap time of 1.47.95, a clear 3.3s lead.
Race 1
I started a little over cautious to ensure the car didn’t stall, this meant I surrendered the lead to Graeme Holmes who lead the first 3 laps. As the Kuhmo tyres came to life after 2 laps we challenged for the lead multiple times on lap 3, sending Graeme wide at turn 11. There was some side-by-side slice and dice from corner 11 to 13 but I eventually executed a safe pass to regain first place. After that the focus was to build a sizable lead whilst posting consistent lap times. We successfully finished with a 10 second lead to take pole position for race 2 tomorrow. I’m currently sitting third in the NSW State Formula Championship so the focus for Sunday will be to gain more points to strengthen our championship challenge.
Personally, I would like to thank all the sponsors & friends that came out today to show their support. There’s a great album on the Facebook page showing all you guys in the garage so make sure you check it out!
VIDEO – NSW Round 2 (April 28 – 29)
In this race the track was so cold that 4 cars, including ours, stalled at the start – This cost Nathan 4 places from P1. In an amazing display of driving Nathan managed to reclaim 5th to second in 2 laps, then the safety car came out. After the race resumed, Nathan went on to claim first place from David Choon in an exciting dice at fishhook corner (turn 8 at Wakefield Park), to reclaim first position.
