Australian driver, Jason Bargwanna has taken his Tiger Building Systems Toyota Camry to the overall win at the second round of the BNT V8s Championship at Taupo this weekend.
Competitors faced hot track conditions throughout the weekend, Bargwanna showing his experience and coming away with overall victory from the three-race encounter.
Bargwanna took a second place in yesterday’s first race, which was won by his teammate Andre Heimgartner.
Bargwanna won the mornings opening race today after Heimgartner struck set-up trouble before going on to finish second in the final race this afternoon behind Heimgartner who took a dominant win.
“In race two, the set-up was wrong, we just had no speed, it was just a matter of holding on for us,” said Heimgartner.
Bargwanna’s round win sees him extending his championship lead over Heimgartner with Nick Ross holding down third place on the points table.
“Championships are about consistency and obviously you want to win every race you go into. Andre is very fast, we took advantage in race two, and made the most of it by getting the win. I knew Andre would have ‘green’ tyres for race three, so I knew that I just had to get to second place on the track to get the round win,” said Bargwanna.
Bargwanna said that changeable track conditions throughout the weekend made it tricky for teams to fine-tune their set-ups.
“As the track temperature came up the grip disappeared, I think for practice the track temperature was 16 degrees, by qualifying it was 43 degrees. We struggled in practice and qualifying to get the most speed out of the car, the car just didn’t respond to the green tyre. For the races we tuned it up and managed to get on top of the changing conditions.”
The class two round win went to reigning champion Liam MacDonald, who recovered from his fourth placing in yesterdays race to go on and achieving a win and a second placing. The final race of the weekend was won by Brock Timpereley, his first win in the class.
“Yesterday’s race didn’t go to plan. We had an issue with the fuel system where the engine just wasn’t getting the fuel it needed, so we were slow,” said MacDonald.
“Managed to hold on for fourth yesterday, and luckily we bounced back today with a win and a second.”
The championship now moves to the South Island, where round three will get underway at Ruapuna, January 13-14.
