Gap closes ahead of finale
Josh Bethune delivered a clinical victory in the feature race at the penultimate round of the Bridgestone GR86 Championship to keep his championship hopes alive.
And the gap between series leader Hayden Bakkerus and Hugo Allan has been reduced to just 11 points with only the final round at the Supercars event from April 11-13 in Taupo.
Bethune passed team-mate Cooper Barnes early on and sped to his third win of the season. Cooper joined him on the podium at Hampton Downs while Justin Allen completed a solid weekend to come third.
“We’ve had a lot of podiums but this one feels good,” says Bethune. “The cars are rockets. Cooper and I have had a great year, and he has pushed me along. It’s great to be at the front.”
The real story of the race, though, was Allan’s fine drive to fourth. With Bakkerus finishing ninth, Allan cut his overall advantage to 11 points. Bethune kept himself in contention, but has a hill to climb to overturn the top two.
With the grid being formed from the fastest times in the weekend’s previous two races, Bethune sat on pole ahead of Australian Cooper Barnes.
As the lights went out, Barnes made the best getaway and had a two-car-lengths lead as the field swept around the opening lap. As they completed the first lap, it was Barnes ahead of Bethune with Allen a few car lengths back in third in front of a raging pack.
Further back, Bakkerus made up a couple of places while Hugo Allan was holding fifth. However, it was the Right Karts by M2 Competition duo of Barnes and Bethune who had control of the race, circulating nose to tail and two seconds ahead of Allen after just four laps.
Bethune, pictured, made a clean pass for the lead on his team-mate crossing the line to start lap six, but attention was on Allan further down the order as he engaged with White in a great battle.
At the halfway mark, he was on White’s bumper. A great pass around the turn three and four sequence gained Allan the advantage. He was through to fourth inside the next hundred metres or so.
Up front, Bethune had built a lead of almost a second ahead of Barnes and was fully in control. He was untouchable and took the chequered flag more than one second ahead.
Barnes finished three seconds ahead of Allen, with Allan next up, then top rookie White in fifth ahead of Jett Murray, who had a strong race on his way to sixth.
Meanwhile, Chris White kept his championship ambitions alive after a superlative win in the second race of the fifth round.
He duelled with pole-position sitter Jett Murray for much of the race before finding a way past and fending off Arthurs Broughan to take the flag. Murray hung on for an impressive second.
And Allen scored a fortunate win after race-one leader Bethune hit problems late on. Cooper Barnes finished just over a second behind after a quiet race for the top three, while Bethune recovered to take the final step of the podium.
