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Soutar won both of the Sunday encounters at Shell V-Power Motorsport Park in his Audi RS 3, but things did not start off well when he stalled on the grid in Race 1 due to the clutch drama.
He recovered to finish ninth in Race 1 and from there his weekend couldn’t have gone any better.
From second position he won Race 2 and took victory the final encounter after a thrilling battle with 2023 series winner Josh Buchan, only for the clutch to let go again on the way to the podium.
Post-race Soutar spoke to Speedcafe.com, he stated that while he didn’t know the cause, he did know the effect.
“When I put my foot to the floor to pull up to the line, the clutch plates had welded themselves together, we’re pretty certain of that, so obviously I just stalled,” he recounted regarding Race 1.
“Pretty frustrating, but then it came good by itself in [Race 1] and then literally coming in from the end of Race 3 the clutch failed again.
“I didn’t do a warm up, I just did the one start and it wasn’t like I was preloading the clutch up too much or anything like that.”
For the Geelong based team, working out the cause will be of top priority before the next round at Queensland Raceway in mid-July.
“To be honest it’s a mystery to us at the moment, but now at least we’ve got a few weeks to get on top of that for the next round in Queensland,” Soutar told Speedcafe.
“You’d like to say we’re going to go home to just relax but it’s never the case, obviously we’ll go home do a bit of homework on why that’s happening, it’s something I want to sort out for the next round for sure.”
The two wins in South Australia were Soutar’s first since Tasmania at the start of 2022. It was also his first in the competitive and fast Tuff Lift-sponsored Audi RS 3, having previously driven a Honda Civic.
“We moved to the Audi last year with the hopes of obviously competing for championships and scoring a few more race wins,” he stated.
“It’s been really difficult period, the car was quite trouble stricken last year, we had a lot of reliability issues, but it seems like this year, touch wood, we’ve got on top of those, it’s a really fast car, which is fantastic.
“The win in Tasmania was as much as surprise to us as it was to anybody else, but this one, we know we’re fast and we know we’re always on the pace, we know what we can achieve. It was just putting it together today, it’s a bit of a relief more than anything else.”
After the Sunday success Soutar now leads the series, but he knows better than anyone after a challenging 2023 that points make prizes.
“I’ve just got to keep building the season together, just keep scoring points on the days of the cars not as fast as others, and then when it is fast making the most of it,” Soutar explained.
“That’s the plan, and that’s what we’ve been doing so far this season and just got to continue that for the final three rounds.”
