Victory in the third and final race of the S5000 Australian Drivers’ Championship at Phillip Island for Cooper Webster gave the Versa Motorsport driver the overall second round victory in front of Joey Mawson and James Golding.
The race start proved critical where Webster was able to emerge ahead and then lead throughout the 12-lap race.
“Joey gave it to me at the start and I knew it was game on,” Webster said. “Once I had the lead, it was game over.”
He had enough push-to-pass at the end to eke out the race’s fastest lap on the last one – a 1:26.4395s circuit – eight tenths off Mawson’s 2021 lap record. The 88Racing Team BRM driver was 2.5s in arrears and while not the winner was content: “Still collected good points, it was a good weekend.”
The two Garry Rogers Motorsport team drivers, James Golding and Aaron Cameron, finished third and fourth, though they had to work for their final positions.
Blake Purdie made a great start to be second after the start. He held the place until Lap 2 when Golding snuck past as they raced out of Siberia. It took another three laps for Cameron to relegate Purdie to fifth, which he did at Turn 4.
Winton Smith held seventh from the start through to Lap 7, but a moment out of Turn 1 and towards Turn 2, allowed Nic Carroll to go by. Smith finished seventh, ahead of Jordan Boys with Mark Rosser ninth.
Mawson finished the round second ahead of Golding, Cameron, Purdie, Carroll, Smith and Boys. In the championship, Mawson retains the lead, albeit with a reduced margin, now down to 11 points. Golding and Cameron retain their third and fourth places.
The third round will be at Winton Motor Raceway on the June 9-11 long weekend.
Every round of the Shannons SpeedSeries is streamed live and ad-free on Stan Sport.