Brit dominates at Manfeild

Arvid Lindblad continued his dominance of this season’s feature races in the Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship by winning the Dan Higgins Trophy race at Manfeild – Circuit Chris Amon.

The Brit’s victory after a rain-interrupted 27 laps and team-mate Nikita Johnson’s second made it 300 podiums in the series over the past 20 years for M2 Competition. 

The race started under the safety car, was stopped and had another safety-vehicle period before it really got under way, but it failed to phase this year’s class act.

“It would have been nice if we’d been able to get a complete race, but I understand the safety reasons as to why we didn’t,” says Lindblad, who has extended his championship lead to 40 points.

“It wasn’t easy at the end. It was drying very fast and I knew these tyres are easy to overheat so I was trying to look after them.

“I assumed most people would go in the last corner late and try to get the run out of there, so I thought I would do something different on the restart. On the first one I was waiting for it but then decided just to go. On the second I knew as soon as it went green that I was going to go.”

With rain bucketing, the first start was planned to begin under the safety car, but conditions worsened and after five laps the stewards called a halt. The vehicles stayed on the grid for around 15 minutes when the weather made a distinct improvement.

Back under the safety car, the drivers were finally released on what was lap six of the actual race and Lindblad held the field a long time before stepping on the gas in the fast final corner of Manfeild’s 3.03km layout. It was a perfect getaway.

As the race settled down in the still damp conditions and with 10 laps to go, Lindblad held a one-and-half second lead over Johnson, with Patrick Heuzenroeder a further two seconds in arrears. 

At the flag it was Lindblad by just under two seconds from Johnson and Heuzenroeder with fourth-placed Sebastian Manson holding off Matias Zagazeta.

In the weekend’s second race, New Zealander Zack Scoular showed he’s far from beaten in this championship with a masterful win in bizarre weather conditions.

It was a 50-50 call for teams and drivers before the start as some chose slicks in light patchy rain and some – including Scoular – opted for wets.

For all apart from Scoular, this looked like a gamble that wouldn’t pay off as the slick-shod runners took two or three laps but then started to carve their way through the field and towards the top five – led by Lindblad.

Although he started on wets, Scoular was still driving like a man possessed and flying in the drying conditions on the grippy cambered surface. 

A quick burst of heavy rain was the deciding factor, however, especially when M2 Competition failed to bring Lindblad, Zagazeta and Michael Shin in for wets.

Scoular made a great restart to build a few car-lengths lead over Johnson and Josh Pierson. That was how it stayed. 

Lindblad, meanwhile, dominated the weekend’s first race on January 25 at Manfeild.

He led from the start, built a lead and then delivered qualifying level laps mid-race to break the field and scorch home to win by a massive five-and-a-half seconds.

With Lindblad now with a firm grip on the championship, the drivers head to New Zealand’s South Island for round five from January 31 to February 2 at Teretonga Raceway just outside of Invercargill.