Tom Bewley hopes his recent pole-setting speed will continue when the Australian Porsche Carrera Cup championship continues at The Bend this weekend, the last race track on this year’s calendar the 18-year-old Kiwi has previously raced on.
Bewley has impressed at the two previous rounds in Darwin and Ipswich, with top six finishes at the Northern Territory track and a maiden pole position at Queensland Raceway.
Driving for Earl Bamber Motorsport in a Porsche New Zealand scholarship car, Bewley is confident they’ll have good pace when practice starts on Friday after a positive test day a week earlier.
“Getting back on track after a pretty good round with pace at QR [Queensland Raceway] gave me heaps of confidence going out in the car and knowing where the limit is straight away,” said Bewley.
“We started the day quite strong and it gave us the opportunity to change the set-up and try different things. Some of them didn’t work and we had to go back to where we were at the start of the day, and that was the sweet spot. Which is good going into official practice.”
Bewley raced at The Bend last year in the ‘junior’ Porsche Sprint Challenge series, where he took pole driving the older model Porsche. This year Porsche Equity-One Carrera Cup Australia races on the shorter West Circuit at the South Australian motorsport complex.
“The Bend is similar to QR, very stop-go, a short layout with heaps of passing opportunities so I think it will be quite fun to race at. Different from last year, they shortened it up to make for better racing as well.”
Joining Bewley at EBM for this round will be Marco Giltrap, who raced in the series last year and is currently leading Porsche Carrera Cup Asia.
“Marco was really fast at Darwin and also on the test day so it was really good to have him back. He’s got plenty of experience in the last few years in these cars so really good to learn off him as well,” said Bewley.
The round features two 45-minute races, one each on Saturday and Sunday, with two practice sessions on Friday and qualifying early Saturday.
Bewley has done less than a handful of the longer races and is still coming to grips managing the endurance format.
“I’m looking forward to the racing part more than anything else, just getting some more laps in. The lack of race laps is what’s been hurting me most this year. I want to make sure I finish, and start, both races,” referring to the start-line clutch failure last time out when he was in pole position.
Following on from The Bend, the championship goes to three street circuits Bewley has never raced on before, Bathurst, Surfers Paradise and Adelaide, so a strong weekend at The Bend is important.
“This is maybe the last round where I can maybe show where I’m at with tracks I know. The last three are all at street circuits which you can’t test at either.
“I’m just looking forward to getting into this round and learning the most I can about the car for the last three, so I’ve got a better understanding of where to find the limit on the scarier tracks.”
So then, what’s the chance of another pole coming this weekend?
“That’s what I hope for, I’d be pretty disappointed otherwise now,” he quipped.
“Seriously, like going into QR, I’d be happy with a top five. This weekend the times might be a little bit closer, maybe, so you never know what can happen, might be able to pull something out.”
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