Allan back on form and pole position

Bridgestone GR86 Championship contender Hugo Allan put a challenging weekend at Teretonga behind him with a faultless performance in qualifying for the fourth round of the championship at Highlands Motorsport Park this morning.

After a solid two days of testing and set up work, Allan and his CareVets iMac Racing team put the finished product to work early in the twenty-minute session and within two flying laps Hugo had set a benchmark lap time of 1 minute 50.263 seconds.

It proved too good for any of the rest of the 25-car field to match. Nearest challenger – and championship leader – Hayden Bakkerus, was just under two tenths behind. It was a big margin in a field where the top twenty cars were covered, once again, by just over a second.

“I love this place and the team had done a great job in finding a few extra tenths over the past couple of days,” said a delighted Hugo afterwards.

“I wasn’t any more committed than I would be normally, and the car did everything we had set it up for. The tyres were strong, and the lap was clean.”

A top ten – which promises to provide some fantastic racing in the afternoon’s first race, includes all of the major contenders for championship honours and race winners from the first three rounds.

Australian Lachlan Evennett and Chris White are on the second row, with Josh Bethune and Cormac Murphy on row three. Behind them is Justin Allen in seventh and Mason Potter in eighth. Cooper Barnes starts ninth and Emerson Vincent, a winner at the first round at Taupo, completes the top ten.

Simon Hunter is top Master Class runner starting 13th, a remarkable performance after a busy week when his team effectively built a new race car which only ran for the first time on Wednesday evening.