Joey Mawson has swept Round 3 in S5000 at Winton Raceway, with a commanding display in each race.
The New South Wales driver won Race 1 and continued to lead margins over the field in a chaotic Race 2 and cleanly took victory in the final outing for the championship in Victoria.
“Yeah, another clean sweep and championship lead extended. Mega,” said Mawson.
“I like to do my talking on the track, so I hope this helps my case.”
Mawson started off the pole position after his Race 1 victory. He started well off the line, but it was third placed Blake Purdie who looked to have the best start.
That all changed at Turn 1 as Purdie locked up his inside right tyre and careered into the side of Versa Motorsport team-mate Cooper Webster, then colliding with Mark Rosser at the next chicane due to steering problems.
Due to the contact with Purdie and Webster, Jordan Boys and Winston Smith also hit each other trying to avoid the incident, but only Boys could drive back to the pits to change for a new front wing.
This incident brought out the Safety Car after the first lap and only five cars were able to restart the race with 10 minutes left of Race 2.
Leader Mawson easily ruled the restart and raced nearly three seconds ahead of the field.
Golding took advantage of a mistake at Turn 7 from Cameron with three minutes to go, moving into second place.
Boys moved ahead of Carroll at the last corner with a minute left on the clock and as the time finished, it was Mawson, from Golding and Cameron in the top three, with Boys and Carroll behind.
At the commencement of Race 3, it was announced that the Stewards had given Purdie a 20 championship point penalty for the Turn 1 contact he was involved with in Race 2.
In the Race 3 start, Mawson again took a dominant lead into the first turn as Webster shot up two places into the top four by the end of Lap 1.
It was a relatively clean start to the weekend’s final race, with the top three unchanged until the chequered flag fell.
The battle for fourth between Webster and Boys continued for most of the race, less than a second between the two. But the Team Valvoline GRM driver was unable to make an overtake stick, having to settle for fifth.
Mawson won the final race of the weekend by just over a second to Golding and Cameron, and this clean sweep handed the ACM Finance.com driver his second round win in 2023.
The next round of the S5000 Championship is at Sydney Motorsport Park on July 28-30.
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