Andre Heimgartner has ensured he remains in the hunt for the 2017 Carrera Cup Australia title, bringing home a podium position in today’s opening race for the category despite exceptionally wet conditions.
Now, he looks ahead to starting Race 21 of the Supercars Championship from the second row on the grid this afternoon (2.25pm) in the #14 Freightliner Racing Commodore of Brad Jones Racing he is sharing with Tim Slade this weekend.
Today’s Carrera Cup race – scheduled to run for 12 laps – started under safety car conditions for safety reasons. Green running would commence for the beginning of lap three, with Heimgartner leading the field from pole position courtesy of his qualifying result yesterday.
For the first seven laps, the 22-year-old Kiwi lead the field, however Jaxon Evans would be able to make a pass on lap seven by virtue of simply having a faster car in the conditions.
Evans would go on to win the race by 10 seconds, as Heimgartner battled with his championship rival David Wall over the final three laps – fending off challenges for P2 in some great hard and fair battles between the pair.
However, just 35 thousandths of a second would decide the position on the finish line of the shortened race – with Wall taking P2 over Heimgartner in P3 as the flags flew at the conclusion of lap 10.
“What a race that was – Jaxon had some blistering pace in that car and he had nothing to lose when it comes to the championship. I did my best to hold him off but in the end, I had to let him go,” Heimgartner said.
“That battle with Wall at the end was intense – it was a hard and fair battle which is what you want as a racer, I thought I was going to be able to hold it to the end of the race but he just got me there right on the finish line. Thirty-five thousandths of a second is quite a margin!
“We are still a chance of the title with a 68-point gap between Wall and myself and 120 points up for grabs over the next two races. You can bet that Sonic Motor Racing Services and I will be doing absolutely everything we can to be in the best position possible.”
Today’s Supercars race will kick-off at 2.25pm. Tomorrow will host two further races for the Carrera Cup proceedings (8.30am and 1.05pm) as well as Race 22 for the Supercars Championship.
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