Racy Russian Egor Orudzhev made a speedy start to the Toyota Racing Series at Invercargill’s Teretonga circuit with two victories – and a crash while leading the other race.
The 18-year-old from St Petersburg won yesterday’s opening race and today he controlled the feature event, the 20-lap Spirit of a Nation race, all the way despite strong pressure from Invercargill driver Damon Leitch.
Orudzhev had to keep his cool to keep Leitch at bay.
“He was quicker than me,” the Russian admitted. “I could see he had more wing than me so he could do nothing on the straights.
“In the corners I just had to hold the inside line. That was enough.”
Leitch’s wing setup gave him more downforce and therefore more grip in the corners, but also extra drag which slowed him on the straights.
The Kiwi got so close at times he thought the cars might have actually touched.
“The car was really good and fast, it’s a shame I couldn’t pull it off,” he said.
However he was happy to finish the meeting with a podium after he had spun off in the first race when his rear wing broke.
In this morning’s wet race Orudzhev made a fantastic start, going from eighth on the grid to second by the first corner, and taking the lead from Singapore driver Andrew Tang a little later – only to spin off at the fast Loop corner at the end of the long main straight.
“I made a mistake,” he admitted. “I pushed too hard.”
Tang stayed on the track to win that race, which included three safety-car periods as officials sorted things out after crashes.
“That’s my first car race win!” Tang said. “It’s great for this new team [Neale Motorsport] as well as me.
“Conditions were pretty tricky. Egor got past me and then went off and after that I just kept my head down and kept going on.”
Another driver to impress over the weekend was Dutchman Steijn Schothorst, who was leading yesterday’s race till his motor lost one cylinder. Today he came from the back of the grid to finish fourth in the wet race and then finished third in the feature race.
“I was very happy with that wet race,” he said. “I think we can say we made the most of what we had.
“In the feature race, in the dry, it was very hard to pass.”
Meanwhile the points leader at the end of the round was none of these, but Estonian Martin Rump who recorded three consistently good finishes without ever grabbing the limelight. Orudzhev is second and British driver Jann Mardenborough, who was second in the wet race, third overall.
The second round of the New Zealand V8 Touring Cars championship proved to be a torrid one for defending champion Jason Bargwanna,
The former Bathurst winner led yesterday’s race till a broken input shaft forced his Toyota Camry out. He won this morning’s race convincingly, and then came third in the final after a collision damaged the front of his car and made it smoke.
“I was leading by four or five seconds but we had a slow pit stop and I came out behind Nick Ross,” the Aussie said.
“We were carving through the traffic and Ian Booth moved over to let Nick through. But then he moved back and I couldn’t avoid him – he probably didn’t see that there were two cars coming, not just one.”
Ross, from Cambridge, won two races in his Holden Commodore and established a useful lead in the championship. Turua teenager AJ Lauder impressed as he recorded two seconds and a third in the second Toyota, matching the speed of the top two at times.
In the TL class for the older V8s, victories went to Grant Molloy (Invercargill, Ford Falcon), Liam MacDonald (Invercargill, Ford) and James McLaughlin (Lower Hutt, Holden Commodore).
The second round of the Formula Ford championship saw local driver Jamie Conroy repeat his achievement of the first round at Timaru by winning all three races, again with Michael Collins of Christchurch second each time.
However in the final race Conroy’s car became difficult to control because the tyre pressures were too high for the conditions and he briefly went off on the grass. Collins closed right up but Conroy managed to hold him off.
