The second round of the international series was part of the South Australian Championship round and also featured the national Radical, Formula Open and Formula 4 categories.
Wells and Carde finished 4.9s ahead of Gavin Huang and Jonathan Cecotto with Leong Hon Chio and Miki Koyama just 04s behind in third place.
Wells began the race out of third position on the grid and charged into the lead at the first corner. The pole sitter, Clay Osborne was turned around at Turn 1 and subsequently hit by Shijie Hong while Suttiluck Buncharoen, Changwoo Lee and Nattanid ‘Kat’ Leewattanavalagul were also caught up in the incident.
Buncharoen’s car was incapacitated for which the Safety Car was deployed while Lee made it back to the pits as did Osborne and Leewattanavalagul, the latter two able to continue after quick repairs that kept them on the lead lap.
Wells built up a substantial margin before he handed over to Carde who was able to retain the front running. Cecotto was able to bring the gap down as did Leewattanavalagul on second place driver.
Behind the three Pro outfits, fourth place and first in Pro Am went to Adrian Deitz and Tony D’Alberto who had a difficult lead up with problems that saw them only qualify 15th.
They finished comfortably ahead of class rivals Fangping Chen and Andrew Couto while Leewattanavalagul and Dechathorn Phuakkarawut fought through to sixth and were the winners of the Am class ahead of Johnson Huang. The Lamborghini Cup win went to Haziq and Hairie Oh in eighth place.
Osborne and Marco Giltrap worked their way up to fourth until the latter was unluckily collected by Jiajun Song who spun across his bow and hit the front left of Giltrap’s car. It meant a second stop for repairs, and they finished 15th.
RADICAL CUP
The first of two 45min races in Round 3 of First Focus Radical Cup Australia was another victory for Garth Walden Racing’s Peter Paddon. From the outside of the front row, he won the start over pole sitter and Arise Racing rival Cooper Cutts and headed him to the flag by 0.5s.
Apart from the compulsory 91s pitstop, Paddon and Cutts ran one-two at the front throughout and well ahead of the rest. Peter Clare and Josh Hunt appeared to have third wrapped up but had to serve a late drive-though penalty as their pitstop was 0.3s short of the minimum time.
That elevated Chris Reindler and Bryce Moore to third after the former was spun around at Turn 1 on the first lap. They finished ahead of Terry Knowles and Bart Mawer, Clare/Hunt and their Volante Rosso teammates Melinda Price and Greg Kenny.
FORMULA OPEN
In a strong Giti Australian Formula Open Series Round 4 first race, Tim Macrow Racing’s Ryan Macmillan scored a 5.1s victory in the Dallara F308/11.
Macmillan had his second pole in a row but lost out to fellow front row starter and similarly mounted Beau Russell. However, he was passed by Macmillan at Turn 6 on the second lap, and also Miles Bromley (F308/11) shortly after.
It was close between the latter two, less than a second with a similar margin to fourth placed Kyle Evans (F308/11). Fifth was 2023 series winner Trent Grubel (F312) who missed qualifying. Behind the F01 class Formula 3s it was Chris Slusarskis in his F02 Tatuus FT-50 from Lachlan Evennett (F04 Mygale M14).
FORMULA 4
The opening race of the second round in the Australian Formula 4 Championship was led throughout by AGI Sport’s James Piszcyk. He was kept in check by second placed Blake Purdie for JAM Motorsport and only 1.2s adrift.
Six and a half seconds away in third was AGI’s Nicolas Stati and almost 20s ahead of JAM’s Seb Amadio and AGI’s Seth Gilmour. Also out of AGI was Imagen Radburn in sixth ahead of John-Paul Drake and Nathan Gotch.
PROTOTYPES
Racing in his third category on the day, John-Paul Drake (Wolf F1/Peugeot Turbo) won the first Australian Prototypes Series race. But he had to wait to the final lap to get the lead. Until then he tailed race leader Ross Poulakis before able to pass the latter’s Praga R1.
Poulakis was also relegated by Jason Makris (Wolf F1/Coyote) and Miles Lacey (Praga) before they crossed the finish line. Not far away was Julian Newton (Radical SR10), Thomas Hughes (Radical SR8), Xinlei Song (Wolf F1), Ben Cheney (West WX10) and Mark Laucke (Wolf) who struggled after a spin on the out-lap which delayed the start.
EXCELS/944
In the state categories, the first race of the day went to Joel Johnson with victory in Excel Trophy as the five-car battle for second went to Tyce Hodge over Brad Vaughan, Fletcher Lewis, Cisco Morales and Aaron Oliver.
The Excel Masters went safety car on the first lap when Robert Zoanetti stopped at Turn 1. After that it was on between the first three. Brian Smith led until he was passed by race winner Shaun Pannowitch. Then Smith was pipped at the finish line by Kim Anderson.
By contrast, the Porsche 944 Challenge Series was a more open race with Cameron Beller over 3s ahead of Adam Brewer and slightly less to third placed Mark Verdino. Mark Taubitz was next in front of Chris Lewis-Williams and Joey Kellock.
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