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Hamilton 400

Race results

Hamilton, New Zealand

18-20 April 2008

Qual 13th
Race 1 10th
Race 2 7th
Race 3 5th

Championship 4^th

This exciting and speedy 3.4 kilometre street race circuit borders the city of Hamilton which is located one hour by road from Auckland. The circuit runs mainly through the Frankton business district and around the city's green belt. The inaugural event in 2008 was a major success.

Pre-race report

30 November -0001

Hamilton is our first international round of the year and being a new street circuit it is going to be very exciting. I believe this event will be the biggest challenge of the year for every team. It is a new circuit, we have no data and no prior experience and throw in concrete walls and NZ weather to the equation... it will be one hell of a weekend. I have studied the track map, it has a lot of sharp 90 degree corners which will require good front end grip on entry and power down on exit, top speed is expected to be 265km down the main straight. The difference between this street race and Adelaide is the three sprint race format, which means qualifying will be more important than ever.

Post-race report

30 November -0001

This weekend reinforces how important qualifying is. In the second sector of qualifying I got caught out with the red flag, qualifying 13th. I was on my flying lap when the red flag came out and did not get to complete the lap, which would have comfortably put me in the top 10 ready for the third sector of qualifying. In race 1 I had a coming together with Shane Van Gisbergen at the start which made my tyre deflate so I had to pit and fought my way up to 10th from the back of the field, we had a solid race 2 and 3 finishing 7th and 5th to put us in 6th for the round. The key is to have consistent top 10 results and although this weekend wasn't ideal, we made decent points and are in 4th with the championship spread by a close 151 points between the top 6 drivers.

Track summary

Track Length 3.4km
Best Position 1st (2012)