PRESS RELEASE – Phillip Island thriller for the second last round of the season.

 

The penultimate round of the first ever Australian Formula 4 Championship is throwing up some tight racing and a great battle for third behind runaway series leaders Jordan Lloyd and Tom Randle.

AGI Sport driver Will Brown bagged some very valuable points in both of Saturday’s races finishing second and third to stay in the running for another Rookie of the Round win and possible Rookie of the Year title.

Will said, “ It was an exciting first race, lots of passing going on. I didn’t really get the start that I was hoping for, I went to P5 off the start from starting at P4 but we worked forward and we ended up getting P2 at the end of the race.”

Tom Grech in his IQ Option car was well placed to win some valuable points in the first race until his car hit some problems.

“Race 1 we started sixth so didn’t really make the most of qualifying but surprisingly got a really good start and just started picking them off as the race went on and we got up to second.

‘Then unfortunately we ran out of fuel and the car started to surge and from that point on I just had to back off and at least try and get the car home.”

Meanwhile Jimmy Vernon was having the time of his lift battling it out with Harry Hayek and Zane Goddard for a sixth place finish.

“I had a ball out there, we were going two wide everywhere so you can basically put the cars pretty much anywhere side by side which was a really good feeling. It was good to put on a really good race for the spectators. Hopefully we can turn it around for the rest of the weekend and get up a bit further.

‘The battles with Hayek and Goddard were really fun. There were moves being put on around the outside that were really successful, moves put up on the inside. Yeah, we were trying putting our noses in pretty much anywhere on the circuit and it was heaps of fun. We gave each other a lot of racing room as we all respect each other quite a lot”

Jimmy capitalised on his track knowledge and pole position in the Top 5 reverse grid for Race two to finish second.

“Got off to a good start and maintained the lead, then we had a short safety car period and I led off the restart and then Tom Randle passed me. We had a bit of a scrap and that made Lloyd catch up to me and it was a three-way scrap and then I think Randle fell off the track.

‘The championship might be looking a bit brighter for us after this round that’s really what I’m looking at at the moment and just trying to capitalise on it every chance that I get.”

Will Brown also managed to add to his points haul.

“Didn’t get the best start we wanted, think we went back to fifth or sixth, we worked out way back to third and maintained that. Me and Luis seemed to find each other on the track again, had a good battle but yeah got it over him.

‘The end is coming around quick. It’s a bit sad that it’s coming around but we will just see what we can do at Homebush and just keep it off the walls.”

Tom Grech overcame a gear issue at the start with a pit stop to replace his steering wheel. Tom then started from pit lane but used his home track advantage to take the IQ Option weapon up to a sixth place finish.

The final race will be televised live on Fox Sports at 1pm EDST Sunday 22^nd November.