New Zealand racing driver Matt Halliday has completed the first two rounds of the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup by storming into 6th place in Round 2 following a major set back in Round 1. The opening rounds were held at the Sakhir circuit as support events to the Bahrain Formula 1 Grand Prix and saw a large field of 25 of the latest specification Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars featuring drivers from 14 countries.
The opening weekend of the championship was always going to be a difficult task for the Los Angeles based Kiwi owing to no pre-season testing and the tricky terrain of the Sakhir Formula 1 track. Free practice on Friday saw a conservative start for Halliday’s first run in the 2010 spec car but set up changes for Saturday’s qualifying sessions resulted in lap times well over a second faster to qualify 12th for Race 1 and 9th for Race 2.
Unfortunately, Halliday’s car suffered power steering failure before the start of Saturday’s Round 1 and despite efforts to undertake quick repairs, he was forced to withdraw after completing just two laps to register a disappointing DNF.
Round 2 was held on Sunday and provided a far better result when Halliday made a clean start for the 10 lap sprint and rapidly worked his way up through the field. Again changes were made to the car’s set up which saw his lap times further improve which delighted both driver and team as they continue to move forward with their technical development of the new car:
“It was a good result in the second race however it was a shame we lost some time avoiding a crash on the first lap which meant the gap to the cars in front was too big to close. Despite the dramas yesterday which only allowed me to complete two laps, it was a learning weekend in a brand new car I had not driven before. We will now do some testing before Barcelona and be ready fight to hard for the rest of the season” said Halliday after the finish of Round 2.
Round 3 of the 2010 Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup will be held at Barcelona ’s Catalunya circuit in Spain on May 9th. However, Halliday will now return to New Zealand to contest the final round of the Battery Town Porsche GT3 Challenge at Taupo Motorsport Park this coming weekend.
CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS AFTER ROUND 2:
1 Rene Rast ( Germany ) 44
2 Stefan Rosina ( Slovakia ) 32
3 Jeroen Bleekemolen ( Holland ) 30
4 Nick Tandy ( Great Britain ) 30
5 Jan Seyffarth ( Germany ) 21
6 Sascha Maassen ( Germany ) 16
7 Alessandro Zampedri ( Italy ) 16
8 Tim Bridgman ( Great Britain ) 13
9 Norbert Siedler ( Austria ) 12
10 Christian Engelhart ( Germany ) 10
11 Sean Edwards ( Great Britain ) 10
12 Matt Halliday ( New Zealand ) 10
13 Sebastiaan Bleekemolen ( Holland ) 7
14 Guba Giermaziak ( Poland ) 7
15 Robert Lukas ( Poland ) 6
16 Patrick Huisman ( France ) 4
17 Siso Cunill ( Spain ) 3
18 William Langhorne ( USA ) 3
2010 PORSCHE MOBIL 1 SUPERCUP CALENDER:
Round 1 13 March Bahrain (Sakhir)
Round 2 14 March Bahrain (Sakhir)
Round 3 09 May Spain (Catalunya)
Round 4 16 May Monaco ( Monte Carlo )
Round 5 27 June Europe ( Valencia )
Round 6 11 July Great Britain (Silverstone)
Round 7 25 July Germany (Hockenheim)
Round 8 01 August Turkey ( Budapest )
Round 9 29 August Belgium (Spa-Francorchamps)
Round 10 12 September Italy ( Monza )
