 Local Formula Ford star Chaz Mostert produced a storming drive in the category’s third and final race at Queensland Raceway, saving a potentially disastrous weekend for the erstwhile championship leader.
The 18 year old fought through the field from 16th on the grid to finish fourth, ensuring he’d leave the round second in the championship - just seven points shy of new leader Nick Foster.
Earlier, Race 2 had seen Mostert tangle with fellow front-runner Geoff Uhrhane, sending the 18 year old Queenslander from third down to 18th position.
"It was a shame,” said Mostert of the incident. “The safety car period allowed us to catch right up to the front two guys, and I was optimistic that we could challenge for the win.
“I braked a little early going down into turn three - due to the tyres being cold after the restart - and Geoff went in just a little hot and clipped me, sending me straight into the sand trap. It was unfortunate, but that’s how racing is sometimes.”
With the Factory Enterprises Spectrum crossing the finish line in a lowly 16th position, scoring the fastest lap of the race was of little consolation to the man who had dominated the opening round at Albert Park.
Still, Mostert’s Race 3 charge managed to save an otherwise damaging weekend.
“We really had to do that,” he said of the 16th to fourth effort. “We’re really focussed on taking the championship this year, and Race 2 was bad for us, so we had to recover well.
“It’s really hard to pass down the inside of turns one and three because of the bumps, but we managed to pick off most of them. I got to fourth by lap nine, but by that stage the leaders were too far gone for us to climb any higher.”
Saturday’s action had seen Mostert qualify third in the morning, and miss out on a Race 1 victory by just two tenths of a second after a thrilling dice with Ryan Simpson.
“That was a tough race,” noted Mostert. “We managed to get the lead off of Ryan early, and hold him out for a fair while, but in doing so we just overheated the rear tyres a bit too much. We were hoping that the lap ten safety car would allow the tyres to come back to us a bit, but in the end we just didn't have enough left to challenge for the win.”
On the whole, Mostert expressed mixed emotions about his weekend.
“I think we did a reasonable job of saving the situation,” he said, “but obviously the Race 2 drama destroyed our weekend. We’re always thinking about the championship points, and that hurt.
“It was also a shame because we didn’t really get to see what we had against the other front runners on Sunday. I wasn’t happy with the car on Friday or Saturday, it was really going off as the track temperatures increased during the day, and we’d tuned it up over night to solve that problem.
“Needless to say we’re really looking forward to Winton in two weeks time. We’ve lost our points lead, but we haven’t lost our speed, so I can’t wait to get stuck into it.”
RESULTS: ROUND 2 - IPSWICH 300, QUEENSLAND RACEWAY
Chaz Mostert, Factory Enterprises, Spectrum 012
Qualifying: 3rd - 1:13.9698
Race 1: 2nd - 6 laps led
Race 2: 16th - 1 lap led, fastest lap of race
Race 3: 4th
Championship position: 2nd - 49 points
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Damon Hill – Media Manager: 0411 669 910, damon@signatureseries.com
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