News
Jun 27, 2016
Walleee’s Carrera Cup update
We are now three rounds in to the Porsche Carrera Cup Australia season and I can honestly say I absolutely love being back as a part of it again. Back in the Porsche, and back on the Michelin tyres again – the whole package is really enjoyable.
In a way we hit the ground running, topping both practice sessions at the opening round of the season at the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide. This was actually something the team and I spoke about before we even got there; we wanted to come in and make a big impact on our first day back in the series.
Unfortunately we didn’t quite get it right the next day! Perhaps we should have stuck with our House of Chow strategy from the day before? Even though we didn’t get the results we wanted in the end, we still came away with plenty of positives.
Next up was one of my favourite events of the season! Round two at the Melbourne Formula 1 Grand Prix is always an enjoyable weekend, the track has always been phenomenal – it is one of my favourite tracks. To race as a part of such a world class event on the global motorsport stage is such an amazing opportunity!
Just as we did at Clipsal, we once again we chipped away at it all weekend, making the car better and better. By the end of each weekend we felt like we had made good progress which is what we need to be doing at that point.
Next up was my home round, and a track where we had actually tested at with the new Porsche so for once we were not coming into the weekend with a completely blank sheet of paper.
The round was a different format to the other rounds in that there were two races each one hour long, and each raced with a co-driver. Joining us for the round was Adrian Flack. We have done a lot of racing with Adrian’s brother Damien so it was nice to keep it in the family somewhat!
Straight out of the box the car was good. We fine-tuned it using what we had learnt both at the test, and in the opening rounds, making the car better and better as the weekend went on.
Both Adrian and I qualified well for a combined starting spot of 3rd. We got a great start to lead the race for the early laps. Unfortunately we just did not have the pace to hold the lead, but we were able to pit for our driver change in 3rd place. With Adrian in the car, he drove really well. It was only a small error that saw us finish 4th outright.
We were really confident going into the second race of the weekend, the car felt great in the morning warm up after we made a few adjustments overnight!
Unfortunately Adrian stalled the car at the start, dropping us back to dead last. This meant that we did not get the result we were after, but again there were still plenty of positives to take away from the weekend. The pace is very much there and we have a couple of changes we want to make to the car before we go to Darwin and hopefully that will help us.
Really enjoying racing in the Porsche Carrera Cup Australia and actually really enjoying my motorsport so far this year and we are not even half way through the season!
We are looking forward to Darwin, particularly as we will be one of only a few drivers and teams that have raced there since Carrera Cup was there in 2007 to be back there, especially with the new surface that is less than 12 months old, we are hoping that it is going to be an enjoyable weekend.
The car is very good to drive, very rewarding and we are racing at some of the biggest races in the country, and in the process giving Payce, Wilson Security, and Shannons plenty of exposure along the way. The Series is great for everyone involved.