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ETEC Lay Foundations As Toyota Racing Series Gets Underway At Teretonga Park
ETEC Motorsport made a solid start in race one of the Toyota Racing Series, bringing home all of their cars to the finish with the four series debutants filling the top four rookie positions and returnee Tanart Sathienthirakul scoring solid points.
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After three days of testing and familiarisation between the team and the drivers, qualifying got under way on Saturday morning at New Zealand’s most Southerly circuit, Teretonga Park. The narrow and twisty venue famed for its changeable weather did not disappoint as a combination of wind, rain and sun made conditions for fast qualifying laps a real test of the driver’s skill.
The ETEC drivers, made up of five nationalities including two single-seater debutants and a lady racer, were placed between 9th and 17th on the grid for race one, with the higher places being taken by series returnees headed by Austrian driver Lucas Auer.
As the cars came to the grid things did not get off to the best start as Singaporean Andrew Tang burned out his clutch on his car racing debut. An aborted start would follow, leaving Tang placed at the back of the grid on the restart.
A clean start ensured that Calderon and Nandy both gained places off the line as the cars charged into the fast left hand first corner.
Nandy was without doubt the raciest driver on the grid, despite being just 16 years-old this week, the youngster passed two cars off the line and then overtook British F3 National Class Champion, Spike Goddard to pursue ETEC counterparts Calderon and Mardenborough.
The 15 lap race ran out its course without further position changes despite the best efforts of Calderon to pass British GT ace Mardenborough.
At the flag ETEC driver Tanart Sathirnthirakul made it into the points with a solid 9th followed home by Mardenborough 11th, Calderon 12th, Nandy 14th and Tang 17th.
Team Manager Trevor Scheumack said of the first race “ It was a solid performance, I’ve been doing this long enough to know that you cant just arrive in this series with little experience as a driver and win, our guys did well, free of mistakes and bringing the cars home”
First ETEC driver home Tanart Sathirnthirakul from Thailand and the only ETEC driver with TRS experience was less happy “I stuffed up the start big time, and got my foot stuck on the clutch, I was lucky to get away and when I did it was in 9th where I was able to finish.”
Jann Mardenborough was also critical of his performance, clearly not satisfied with his 11th place on his single-seater debut. The Nissan GT academy driver and gaming to racing graduate said, “My race was poor, the car was difficult in some corners and I couldn’t push as hard as I wanted. I’m feeling very positive though, I really think that we can move forward over the remainder of the weekend.”
Tatiana Calderon was more philosophical “It was OK, I made a mistake overheating the clutch but got away well and passed Damon (Leitch) into turn one. I chased Jann for most of the race but it’s so narrow here if you move an inch off-line you run out of room,” said the Columbian.
Akash Nandy was satisfied “I’m happy with that, I passed some people and raced hard, a small mistake cost me a place at turn one when I was closing in on Tatiana and Jann - tomorrow I hope to go better still”
Andrew Tang felt he had a trying day, a brush with the wall in qualifying and also burning out his clutch on the grid. Still his objective was to not be last on his car racing debut and he achieved that. “Lets see how it goes tomorrow”, he shrugged.
The Toyota Racing Series resumes tomorrow (Sunday 12th January), with Rounds 2 & 3 of the 15 race championship.
PaddockTalk Perspective
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