Angelo Mouzouris was left pleased with his pace but admitted he made “too many mistakes” in Round 1 of the Dunlop Super2 Series at Sydney Motorsport Park.
The 2019 Australian Formula Ford title winner sits 16th in the standings after his first Super2 round with MW Motorsport, in which he scored race results of 13th in class (15th outright) and then a DNF.
The latter was the consequence of hitting Cameron Hill in the second corner of the race, which caused damage to his Nissan Altima that could not be fixed on the run, and also cost him a 15-point penalty.
Mouzouris had at least made it onto the front row of the grid on that occasion, having started at the very back of the 31-car field after breaching track limits in a disrupted qualifying session ahead of Saturday’s encounter.
“It was my first weekend with MW Motorsport, and I couldn’t be happier with the team,” he said.
“The whole crew is great, the car was super-fast, but in the end, we just didn’t get it right unfortunately.
“Saturday got off on the wrong foot. I didn’t do a lap in qualifying due to my own mistake by running off the track and getting a kerb strike, so we had to start at the rear of the field.
“We made our way up to 13th in the race and I only had about 10 laps due to the Safety Car, so we did pretty good there.
“[On Sunday] we qualified really well, finishing P2, and I actually got baulked on our quickest lap by a Super3 car. We could have gone one better, but it is what it is.
“In Race 2, I stuffed up at Turn 2, ran a bit deep and tagged Cam Hill to unfortunately retire due to a mechanical failure in the front-right.
“Overall, there was a lot to take away, but too many mistakes and hopefully going to Perth we can show our true speed.”
Mouzouris was hardly the only driver with a tale of woe from what was a chaotic weekend, in part due to the rain which fell on and off throughout.
Debutant team-mate Thomas Maxwell was fourth for the round with race results of third and fourth but Tyler Everingham could not take a trick in the other MWM entry, if he could get into it at all.
Everingham in fact missed Friday’s two practice sessions after spending the night before in hospital due to food poisoning, and was leading Race 1 when he was cruelled by a slowly deflating tyre.
He finished 27th outright and 15th in class that afternoon, then fifth in Race 2 of the weekend.
It could have been a better result on the Sunday, however, considering Everingham was fastest to the first sector when Qualifying for Race 2 ended early due to a red flag, leaving him fourth on the grid.
He is now eighth in the series ahead of Round 2 at the Bunnings Trade Perth SuperNight on April 30-May 1.
That event had been in doubt earlier in the year when Western Australia’s border closure was extended indefinitely, but the state is now open to triple-vaccinated persons and tickets have gone on sale.