News
Oct 25, 2017
Walleee’s words on Gold Coast & 2017 Championship
Porsche Carrera Cup Australia Round 7 – Gold Coast
We knew heading into the final round of the Porsche Carrera Cup Australia Championship that we had a very strong possibility of doing well but we needed to make sure that we ticked all the boxes over the weekend.
After practice we were reasonably happy with the car, we ended up finishing practice 2 quickest. I found it difficult running between the two cars (Porsche and Nissan), especially bouncing over all the kerbs going from a soft car in the Supercar back to the Porsche which is much stiffer overall.
In qualifying I didn’t really maximise what I had in the car and didn’t do a good enough job. The car wasn’t too bad, not as good as practice but not too bad with the changing track conditions and we ended up 5th. No where near where we should have been.
I was very keen to get into race 1 to make amends after qualifying, but it ended up raining a lot and it was the first time we had to run on the new Michelin wet tyres. We were able to gain some information from a friend overseas who has run on the tyre before so we had an idea of what to expect and it worked out perfectly as we went from 5th to 2nd, we were later delegated back to 3rd after a penalty for cutting one of the chicanes. Still happy and we gained a lot of points for the first race of the weekend.
Race 2 was the final race of the endurance championship and everything was going well, I was 3rd but didn’t really have the pace of 2nd but was satisfied to finish there and that would have put us in a very commanding position heading into race 3, then unfortunately we got held up by a slow car with 2 laps to go and ended up losing 2 spots which all of sudden closed the gap for the last race. I was very frustrated, but in saying that we managed to stay positive and went into the 3rd race with the goal to finish 7th or better to give us the title and we finished 5th.
Never been so happy to finish 5th in my life, to seal the championship that we have put some much into, for myself we tried every avenue to further my driving and I feel like I am driving well and we really maximised everything out of the car. Everyone at Wall Racing has done an incredible job to come away with the victory, equal most pole positions, the most wins we have had in a season, the most podiums in a season and to finish in the top 6 or better in every race with no DNFs and no mechanical problems throughout the year is an absolute credit to everyone involved and I couldn’t be happier as driver but especially as the Team Owner. You set yourself goals to be the best and we are the best.
To be able to come away with such a fantastic results is such a massive reward. For everyone that has made it possible, people like Wilson Security, PAYCE, Shannons who enable us to go racing and have done so for a number of years and have been involved in my career for such a long time it is just so nice to be able to reward them back and see them when looking down from the podium, all the familiar faces there so genuinely happy that we have done well is the icing on the cake for what anyone could want for a championship.
To then receive the news later on that Wilson Security will joining the series in 2018 and sponsoring the Carrera Cup championship, with the new era car coming in and a full grid that is already over subscribed is great, to have them involved in the series itself and moving forward is the perfect scenario all round.
Massive thanks to everyone, including our other sponsors C-Coconut Water, Porsche Centre Sydney South and everyone involved who enables us to do what we love to do this is just a pat on the back for everyone. We will be celebrating over Christmas before we get ready for the new year and really enjoy such a fantastic championship year, they don’t come around often it’s been 7 years since my last championship win and 8 years since my first. We will be celebrating for sure and making sure that everyone is well rested for another year.