Hunter McElrea continued to fight his way to the top of the Australian Formula Ford championship standings over the weekend at the Winton Super Sprint as a support category for the Supercars.
The Sonic Motor Racing services driver got off to a great start in qualifying, putting his #4 Mygale on the front row in second place, out of the strong 32 car field.
“Qualifying was interesting session on a drying track after a really wet day of practice” McElrea said. “I went to the top on the 2nd last lap and I just pushed too hard on the last lap knowing it was going to be when the track was the best”
The first race saw the 17-year-old get a great jump off the start and take an early lead before the race was unfortunately ended early after a first lap pile up.
“It was a bit of a shame about race 1, I got to the lead and then as soon as I started to settle into a rhythm the race was stopped, but I’m just happy I have a straight and fast car for tomorrow” Hunter said.
In Race 2, McElrea pulled an early 1.3 second gap on the field. This lead was then diminished after getting passed by Aaron Cameron who was quick early in the race. However, McElrea pulled back the gap and made a move at the second to last corner to retake the lead. After an intense three-way fight for the lead, a slight mistake meant McElrea would finish P3.
In the final race of the weekend Hunter dropped to P4 on the opening lap after a slight mistake at turn four. Recovering from this, he was able to pass back up to third, catching the leaders and setting the fastest lap of the race in the process.
A safety car was then called, and the field was then bunched up again. McElrea got a decent jump off the restart, however a late dive by the fourth placed car behind dropped Hunter to seventh but he managed to salvaged a fifth place finish.
“Overall, I was gutted with both races today, in the second race I didn’t make my pass for the lead stick and ended up P3, and in the last race I made a mistake early on, and then gave Ojeda an opportunity to dive bomb me at T4 which just ended my chance to win again” McElrea said.
“My car was just awesome as usual, and we were fastest again, it’s just a matter of fixing that last 1%. I just have to give a massive thank to my team Sonic, my mentors Mick and Maria, all my sponsors and family for believing in me”.
Max Vidau (Mygale SJ1019) currently leads the points table on 132 ahead of Jayden Ojeda (Spectrum 015) (103), Cooper Murray (Mygale SJ13A) (75) and McElrea on 69..
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