Successful outing for Bewley in GT New Zealand Championship

Hawkes Bay teenager Tom Bewley made a successful one-off appearance in the Summerset GT Championship at Hampton Downs in a planned real-live test session ahead of his Porsche New Zealand scholarship season in Australia.

Racing the Dura-Seal backed Porsche 991.2 GT3 set-up to full Australian championship specification, which included the removal of the car’s ABS system, Bewley mixed it with a variety of faster cars and gained valuable experience ahead of his first ever international championship.

Bewley’s team decided to enter the 17-year-old in competition for some actual racing mileage but it was difficult to gauge his lap performances without any other cars in the same specification.

“I learnt alot about how the brake bias worked, how to change it during the race to help me rotate the car and get it stopped a bit better. In those last few laps I had the car felt really good.

“We’ll also race on the same tyre in the Australian series so that was also a good experience. The idea was to get everything as close as possible to what Australia will be so I can learn as fast as I can when I get there,” said Bewley.

“You’ve got to slowly bring it in otherwise the tyre will go away too quickly. You can really lean on the tyre during those first four or five laps but it’s all about saving the tyre for later on so you can have one last punch at the end of the race.”

All indications are that Bewley’s lap times and race pace were fast for the specification of his car, and in the final race when he shot up to third place overall from a restart, he even managed to hold out the newer, faster 992 for several laps.

Over the three races, two of 30-minutes duration and one hour race, Bewley punched above his weight in the mixed field of GT racing cars and finished 7th and 9th in the two shorter races out of 16 cars, but retired in the final after getting as high as third overall.

“I noticed the oil temperature came up pretty quick so we retired the car to save the engine. I’m not entered in the championship and this was just preparation for Australia this year, I turned out it had tossed a belt and I just wanted to make sure the car stayed alive.”

Scrutinising his performance, how did he mark himself out of ten.

“8.5 because I lost a tyre earlier in the weekend. But it worked out well. I guess it was a bit hard with the other cars and the difference in speeds but at least I had someone to chase in the faster cars and that helped me maximise my car.”

Bewley’s Porsche Sprint Challenge campaign starts on the first weekend of April at PhillipIsland with testing at the Victorian track to be held a week earlier.

The current Toyota 86 champion is also supported by Dura-Seal High Performance Vehicle Protection, along with Clipped Assist, Bel Energy, Tony Quinn Foundation, Racer Products and Mackenzie Motorsport.