Young rookie driver Ronan Murphy made his NZ Formula Ford championship debut at the opening round at Pukekohe Raceway in September. Here are his thoughts on how the weekend’s racing went….
Recently I competed in the first round of the 2019/20 ITM NZ Formula Ford Championship which was held as a support category to the Virgin Australia Supercars at the ITM SuperSprint at Pukekohe Park Raceway. What a great event to be at in front of such a massive crowd of fans and followers of Supercars.
No doubt many were attending due to the five Kiwi drivers in the Supercars field who all performed exceptionally well. All five in the top ten on Saturday and four in the top 12 on Sunday!
For myself it was really a weekend that could have been, not quite maximising qualifying and ending up on the second row of the grid in P4.
The first race started off well with passing a couple of cars on the first lap to end up second (although we finished under yellow). However, I was given a post race penalty for an apparent start line infringement stripping me of second place. Due to the bunched finish under the safety car, this meant I was only classified eighth overall.
It was truly disappointing as I certainly had the speed to have gapped the others which would have minimised the damage of the time penalty.
The second race I finished fourth after a long hard five-car battle, but I still didn’t quite maximise my speed and probably should have been a bit further up.
The final race of the weekend on Sunday sadly ended after only half a lap after having to jump on the brakes in order to avoid another car in front with problems. I was hit hard from behind badly damaging one of the A-arms in the rear suspension. I had to come into the pits and there was little that could be done in time to get me back out there.
Overall it was a really fun weekend and I learnt heaps racing against a new crop of talented young drivers and I’m really looking forward to mixing it with them (and hopefully beating!) in the rounds to come.
The next one being at Manfeild on the weekend of 19-20 October at Manfeild Circuit Chris Amon. Hope some of you can make it.
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