Pukekohe’s Taylor Cockerton goes into Saturday’s qualifying for the first round of the Castrol Toyota Racing Series at Ruapuna, near Christchurch with his confidence restored after setting the fastest practice time in Friday’s final practice session.
“We had been struggling for most of practice over the last couple of days,” said the 19 year old. “We tried different car set ups and it would be one step forward and then two backwards. We were struggling to get just inside the top ten.”
His engineer, former Formula Ford National Champion Andy Neale, and the mechanics returned Cockerton’s car to the set-up he had used at the New Zealand Grand Prix and Manfeild 11 months ago.
“We had started with that two days ago and went away from it, but coming back to something I knew did the trick.”
Cockerton said he also felt after three days of testing and practice he was getting used to the car again, having not driven it since last February.
“I can push ahead into qualifying with a lot more confidence now.”
While he was on the top of the time sheets, he will not have things his own way. The top ten drivers are separated by just nine tenths of a second, with Sydney’s Thomas Randle second fastest and British driver Enaam Ahmed third and quickest amongst those drivers who have not done the series before.
“It’s the toughest line-up of drivers I have ever raced against,” said Ahmed who has just completed a season in the British Formula 3 Championship.
“I’ve got to push myself really hard to be competitive in this company.”
But the close nature of the field was demonstrated by some topsey turvey times, as drivers and their teams made suspension and aerodynamic adjustments to their cars, not always for the better.
Dutch teenager Richard Verschoor and the most experienced Kiwi, Brendon Leitch who were third and fourth fastest in the morning practice were only fourteenth and fifteenth quickest in the afternoon.
The Castrol Toyota Racing Series will follow a familiar weekend format with qualifying on Saturday morning and the first of three races on Saturday afternoon.
The main event of the weekend, the Lady Wigram Trophy Race will be held on Sunday afternoon after a shorter morning shorter race.
The top ten practice times were.-
1, T Cockerton (Pukekohe) 1 minute, 17.383 seconds;
2, T Randle (Australia) 1.17.540;
3, E Ahmed (England) 1.17.655;
4, F Habsburg (Austria) 1.17.759;
5, J Daruvala (India) 1.17.790;
6, M Armstrong (Christchurch) 1.17.926;
7, S Blackstock (USA) 17.957;
8, P Piquet (Brazil) 1.18.115;
9, L Leeds (Australia) 1.18.225;
10, K LaLiberte (Canada) 1.18.285.
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