PRESS RELEASE – Rowe and Brown shine in the wet
Sunday dawned under grey skies and waves of heavy showers serving up a wet track for the Race 2 Reverse Grid.
AGI Sport drivers Nick Rowe and Jimmy Vernon were best placed on the grid in P2 and P3 respectively. Nick Rowe was looking forward to the wet having been successful at Sydney Motorsport Park in Formula Fords the previous year.
Rowe hit the pedal hard off the line beating pole sitter Zane Goddard to the first turn. Rivals Jordan Lloyd and Thomas Randle also made a couple of spots on the first lap as they tried to reel in the Western Australian driver.
The start didn’t quite go to plan for Jimmy Vernon in the Toolforce Racing car and a slight mistake on the wet track prompted a spin which relegated Jimmy to the rear of the pack for the remainder of the race.
Nick Rowe relished the wet track though and soon put a bit of space between himself and the in-form Thomas Randle. As the race continued that gap only got bigger, by the end of the 15-lap race there was plenty of room between Rowe and second place getter Randle.
“We had a very good car thanks to AGI and we were able to win the race by about 12 seconds. We got a good start, got the lead and then put our head down and pulled away from Tom and it was great to come away with the win.
‘The feeling of the car was actually amazing. I was trying to push the limit every lap. I wasn’t going to back off, I really wanted to get out and win by a long way and I did that so it was great to take a victory.”
Will Brown also showed some wet weather form. Brown has shown great consistency over the first three rounds of the Championship and won the first race of the season in Townsville. He was excited to be racing on the damp track in the Formula 4 cars.
“They move around a fair bit. The wet tyres are awesome. They have a lot of grip as well so turn one is flat in these in the wet so its pretty exciting.
The young Queenslander was eighth on the grid for Race 2 and was a little disappointed with his start.
“We had a gear select issue so I think we went back to about ninth or tenth. We got back up to third by the second last lap and we were able to finish third which was a great result.”
Tom Grech in the IQ Option Racing car battled it out with BRM driver Harry Hayek to bank some valuable points in fifth place. Jordan Love ran with the front-runners early before an unlucky off-track excursion sent him to tenth spot.
The heavens opened for the final race of the round. Visibility was bad but the on-track action was good. A clean race with no safety car despite the torrential weather and a number of amazing dices and overtakes made for some of the most exciting racing of the season so far.
Brown started fourth on the grid and kept a strong focus to keep the leaders in his sights and overtake Zane Goddard for a third position.
“ It was raining pretty hard so there was a lot of water on the track. Had a great race, was able to get a good start, stick by Lloyd for a bit. Got into second for a while but had a bit of a lose in turn ten again so that was a bit unlucky and dropped back to third.
“ We got a eighth and two thirds so we were pretty happy with that.”
The result was enough to hand Brown his second Rookie Award for the season and gave him fourth for the round overall.
Nick Rowe started in sixth position on the grid and managed to capitalise on that and move a few places up the order.
“ When I got to fourth the boys came over the radio and told me the leaders were about eight seconds in front of me and I thought that’s a long way.
‘I put my head forward and then did one sector and the boys said good job, you’ve done 1.3 seconds already and five laps later I was right behind them but just couldn’t do anything, there wasn’t enough laps.”
Nick ended third for the round and managed to close the Championship point gap to Jordan Lloyd.
Jimmy Vernon banked some points with a seventh place finish and was all smiles at the end of the round.
“ The wheel to wheel racing was unbelievable and I just had a heap of fun. The team got a bit saturated but it was a great weekend.
Jordan Love managed to gain a couple of places in the final race with a couple of nice passes. The young karter came to grips with the wet track very quickly after Race 2 and managed a top six finish.
“I managed a good start and kept moving forward so we finished on a good note which is always a good thing.
Tom Grech also ended in the top ten and banked more points for the round. The Victorian returns to his home track next round when the Formula 4 roadshow hits Sandown from September 11-13.
