Ant Pedersen bounced back from a tough day to win the feature race in style, passing race leader Daniel Gaunt and holding on after a safety car restart to take the chequered flag.

Pedersen made a great start from sixth on the grid and emerged at the end of the first lap in third place, with only the front row men Daniel Gaunt and Greg Murphy ahead. Behind them, Andre Heimgartner made a lunge up the inside at the first turn and ran wide, holding it together for a moment before being swallowed by the pack. In his haste to keep momentum he ran wide again, forcing Andy Booth out very wide.

The dust settled long enough to see that at the end of lap two Gaunt led from Murphy, Pedersen, an impressive Ashley Walsh, Craig Baird (at the sharp end again), a very fast starting Simon Evans and Richard Moore. On lap 3 more electrical gremlins struck champion Scott McLaughlin. He stopped out near the bomb hole on the track forcing a safety car, the first of two in the race and bizarrely as the marshals set to collecting him and getting things underway again, Greg Murphy’s car pulled up nearby as well.
When the race resumed Gaunt led from Pedersen but the International Motorsport driver was fully charged and dived down the inside as they braked for the hairpin, then quickly moved away to establish a narrow, but relatively comfortable lead.

The race settled into a pattern with Pedersen and Gaunt circulating out front and the chasing group behind comprising Walsh, Baird, Evans, Moore, Manuell and McIntyre in their own squabble for the minor places. It all turned sour for Evan on lap nine when his car slowed and he came into the pits for a check over, re-joining later but having lost two laps and the chance of a fantastic result.

Pedersen started to pull away at the front of the field by lap 11, with Gaunt falling a little behind – presumably protecting his obvious lead for the overall round honours. Ashley Walsh was in a solid third ahead of Baird, though the veteran ace was never more than a couple of car lengths in arrears. Richard Moore was cranking along nicely behind Baird in fifth and Johnny Mac was also charging along trying to become part of the group and salvage something from a difficult day.

In much the same situation was Andy Booth, on the comeback trail after his incident with Heimgartner early on. Head down and in full attack mode, Boothy was great to watch and he carved through the field, passing Cunningham to get back into the top ten on lap 13.

Track debris brought out the Safety car on lap 16, which was good news for Gaunt and the rest of the pack chasing Ant Pedersen as he had started to assert himself. Pedersen remained cool though, and led away at the restart. They all streamed through without incident until the hairpin when Angus Fogg out-braked himself and spun.

Pedersen now led from Gaunt, Walsh, Baird, Moore, McIntyre and Manuell. Shane van Gisbergen had been working his way through the field nicely but ran out of brakes early on and slowly but surely fell to the back of the field, brakeless and preferring to coast the car to a finish.

Heimgartner’s wild day continued with a mistake on lap 19 that pushed him behind Booth and Edgell, elevating them to eighth and ninth.

That’s how it stayed until the end, Pedersen a happy if relieved feature race winner and Gaunt the clear round winner and class act of the day.