Practice
Practice went really well for us but I knew it would be tough to take the top spot in qualifying. Even though I was quickest in practice, there was still pace in the car. To be top qualifier for the NZGP
really helps because you know you have an edge on everyone else, so my main goal was to dominate qualifying.

Qualifying
Qualifying went to plan but it was unusual because we had a massive tail wind down the front straight but a huge head wind down the back straight and it was interesting to see how this changed the characteristics of the car. We had a three session qualifying schedule and for the first session, the times were a bit off what we were doing in practice.

In the first session, I just grabbed pole by a few hundreds of a second.
For the second session, I visualized where I would go faster. I was happy with the car and it was up to me to put it all together. I smashed the lap record by about 4/10ths and it was nearly 4/10ths faster than the rest of the field. For the last session, all I needed to do was to put in a decent time, as the average of all three sessions would determine my grid spot for the GP. I managed to top the time sheets in all three sessions so this was a good start.

Race One
With Manfield’s weather, you never know what its going to do and a few races before mine it started to rain relatively hard. A quick setup change was done and then we were off. I didn’t get a good start and dropped back to 3rd. My visibility was nil because of the spray. Coming out of turn one around lap four I thought I was going in the right direction, but I obviously wasn’t because I dropped a wheel off the edge of the track and spun. I dropped right to the back but fortunately, there were a few safety cars and I was able to make my way up to 7th.

Race Two
This was a reverse top six and I had finished 7th so that’s where I started. My start wasn’t the best but I didn’t drop any places. I made my way through the messy carnage to finish a solid 4th. This was good for my championship points and I finished in front of my championship rivals.

Race Three
The NZGP is a race I have always looked up to and I would love to
have my name on the silverware that has such a huge history
behind it. I started on pole and got a clean start and a solid first
few laps to create a comfortable gap. Everything went to plan, I
had about a 1.8 second lead over Earl Bamber and Sten Pentus,
and my lap times were very consistent. With about ten laps to go Earl made his move to try to catch me but I had been conserving the car and the tyres so was able to step up the pace, setting faster times than Earl had just done. Earl’s fastest lap was on lap 24 and mine was on lap 25 so I believe I had the race under control.

With five laps remaining the safety car came out which bought us all back together. I got the limiter on the straight because I hit a bump that triggered it, so Bamber got a run on me. I defended, but he crossed me over and made contact with my right rear and that allowed him to gain more momentum and pass me. I lost aero because of being behind him so I dropped by a couple of tenths but I pushed to pass. I almost got through but had to settle for 2nd. I was disappointed not to win as I had lead for 30 of the 35 laps and had the pace over the rest of the field. However, although I missed out on the Grand Prix, we won the four round international part of the series and ultimately that is more important on my CV, as teams look at series wins over individual race wins.

Winning the international championship is a goal I can now tick off and overall, it was a great weekend. We can focus on going into the last round of the championship with a 36 point lead over the remaining competitors.

None of this would have been possible without the fantastic support of my sponsors – Wet & Forget, Giltrap City Toyota, Banklink, Gen-I and XT network and the Giles Motorsport team.