Currently the leading Nissan driver in the Australia Supercars Championship and 15th overall, Andre Heimgartner actually made his saloon car debut at the tender age of 14 years-old back in 2010. It was in the Altherm 1000 at Hampton Downs south of Auckland, that Heimgartner teamed up with Gavin Dawson to compete in the endurance race.
Since then the Kiwi driver has won the NZ Formula Ford Championship twice (2010/11 and 2011/12), competed in Australian FF, Carrera Cup and the Dunlop V8 Championship. He made his debut in Supercars in 2014 at the Bathurst 1000 before gaining a full-time drive with Super Black Racing in 2015. He now competes with Kelly Racing in the Nissan Altima in his scond season with the team.
Here’s Lindsay Beer’s review of Heimgartner’s saloon car debut in the 2010 Altherm 1000, as well as the final round of the North Island Endurance Series….
Successful saloon at debut for Heimgartner
Young Auckland racing driver Andre Heimgartner’s reputation continues to soar after a successful saloon car debut.
The St Kentigern College student took numerous awards last season including the the 2009 Winter Formula Ford Series and the 2009/2010 South Island Formula Ford Championship before making a successful single seater race car debut in Australia. However Heimgartner recently made a stunning saloon car debut in a Mini Challenge car.
Andre’s debut came at short notice when he received the opportunity to drive a Motorsport Services prepared Mini in the Altherm 1000 at Hampton Downs south of Auckland recently. With no opportunity to test beforehand Andre was in at the deep end, fronting for his first drive of the Mini in official practice. Fourteen year old Andre found the car to have great brakes with it’s ABS and sticky tyres although with no limited slip diff care was required feeding in the power exiting corners.
Andre was paired with former MINI Challenge series frontrunner, Gavin Dawson and was quickly on the pace, setting the quickest qualifying time of the four Mini’s in the field before taking the first stint in the race. He made a good start and built a good lead until the appearance of the safety car closed the field up.
After the restart he again built a healthy lead, handing the car to Dawson after 1 hour with a lead of 3/4 of a lap. Over the next two hours Dawson experienced massive problems with overheating brakes, handing the car back to Andre with the car of Ryan Bailey and James Kirkpatrick hot on his tail.
After the driver change Andre put in 20 hot laps to catch the Bailey/Kirkpatrick car and when they had an unexpected pitstop Heimgartner/ Dawson had a lead of three laps. Andre appeared to be cruising to an easy victory until 10 minutes from the end when fuel became a concern and he was forced to slow dramatically. There was also a noise coming from the front suspension and the steering became vague.
However Heimgartner limped home to win the MINI Challenge Enduro Trophy by half a lap. At the end there was just a drop of fuel remaining in the tank and the left front wheel was literally disintegrating.
The following weekend on his fifteenth birthday Andre was in Taupo for the final round of the North Island Endurance Series. Once again there were four Mini’s in the field although in this series they were combined with a large class of cars of up to 2.5 litres engine capacity.
Mark Tordoff was Andre’s co-driver for this outing as Dawson was unavailable and in accordance with the rules of the series the slicks were gone too, replaced by road legal tyres – severely lacking in the wet conditions that Andre would encounter throughout the weekend.
The impressive brakes on the Mini impressed Andre in Friday testing as he was able to bring the Mini from 190km/h to 60 km/h in 50 metres to make the tight turn at the end of the long back straight. Qualifying again took place on Saturday prior to the race and Andre was second fastest behind seasoned Mini competitor Brent Melhop. The wet conditions prevailed throughout the race and Andre reported that it was like driving on ice in the early stages with visibility bad as well. However despite the obstacles Andre handed the car to Tordoff after 1 hour with a 30 second lead.
When he took over again with 1 3/4 hours remaining he was one lap down on the leading Mini.
In typical style Andre mounted a strong drive punctuated by what he described as his scariest moment ever. In the treacherous conditions he hit a ” lake” across the track at the end of the back straight. The Mini spun through 360 degrees twice, demolishing the 150 metre braking marker board and stopping just 1 metre from the armco barrier.
Andre selected first gear and continued on while others who experienced a similar fate were not so lucky. At the end of a very arduous and difficult race Andre greeted the chequered flag the second Mini and third in the class, just 24 seconds behind the class winner. It was another noteworthy drive and netted 10th place overall.
It was another sterling performance on the occasion of Andre’s 15th birthday, the enduro drives his fathers birthday present to the young driver. Ironically two days after the race Andre was able to sit his learners license and now the young man who has won more than his share of racing trophies this season can drive on the road – albeit only with a licensed driver alongside.
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