Race Report – GT3 Cup Challenge – Round 5 – Eastern Creek

Round 5 saw the GT3 Cup Challenge move to the spiritual home of motorsport in New South Wales, down south at Eastern Creek.

Built and owned by the New South Wales Government, Eastern Creek International Raceway is a motorsports circuit located on Brabham Drive, Eastern Creek (40 km west of Sydney CBD or 20km west of Parramatta), New South Wales, Australia and is operated by the Australian Racing Drivers Club. Eastern Creek International Raceway is one of two international race circuits in Sydney.

The race weekend started off to me as a very foreign place at the time. Mornings were cool, as most races are in Australia. Practice 1 and practice 2 saw our car finish 15th and 8th fastest respectively. Practice 3 saw us continuing to speed up though no one was ready for what was to come. We knew that the circuit was very difficult and hadn’t really found the rhythm of the circuit.

Qualifying took place on Saturday afternoon. The team put enough pressure in the Michelin slicks for a 5 lap stint. The plan was to get out there, put a fast lap in, and come back into the pit. The objective here was to try and save some tyres for the race. Though things didn’t go according to plan. After 6 laps of running, a good qualifying lap wasn’t in and after coming in to prepare for the next run, the qualifying session came to an end. It was easily the worse qualifying that we have done in the 2010 season, finishing a very low 15th on the grid.

On Saturday night, the team sat down with the telemetry data, and went through what had happened, hoping to do a better performance in the races.

Race 1 was a good solid race, starting in 15th, and managing to pull a few positions back. After hard fought battles with Bolinosky and Goodacre, we finished 11th place in race 1. Things were getting better again as we have always targeted the top 10 in our second full season of racing.

Race 2 had a good solid first half lap, getting past several cars and running in 8th place. Though on turn 8 of lap 1, we put the throttle down a little early, a little heavy and this caused my car to spin out. We were stuck in the gravel, and could not recover the car. It was just the 3rd DNF (Did not Finish) of my career, and it was extremely disappointing, not to have put points on the board. It was a fairly high speed spin, and this flat spotted my tyres. In this series, regulation only allows us for 6 fresh tyres throughout the weekend. Since I had damaged four, we had no choice but to put fresh rubber on the car, and start from the last grid, as had happened in Morgan Park in round 4. Things were just getting from bad to worse. The purpose of the Eastern Creek round, was to have a good solid warmup prior to the Singapore GP, later this month. Race 3 put us last on the grid, and the plan was simple. New tyres, fresh car, and I would have to try and overtake as many cars as we could, on his elevated Australian cricuit. From the green lights, we pushed past many cars, getting into turn 2 placed in 13th. Over the next few laps, I managed to overtake Jinadasa, Bolinowsky, Morriss and Goodacre. We were extremely aggressive during race 3, managing to finish a respectable 9th place, after working our way from the back of the field.

All in all, it wasn’t the best of race weekends, though Eastern Creek was an extremely challenging circuit. As round 5 comes to a close, the team are all looking forward to 2011 in the Aussie series. Morgan Park and Eastern Creek were challenging circuits to master, and with some experience, we are looking forward to next year with knowing some things about the series. This will undoubtedly help us, in being more competitive in the 2011 season.