Stanaway breaks through in Tasmainia
Mygale pilot Richie Stanaway has broken Nick Percat’s stranglehold on the Australian Formula Ford Championship with an impressive win in the third and final race at Symmons Plains Raceway this afternoon.
In a dramatic race where the lead changed no fewer than a dozen times, Stanaway, Percat and Scott Pye fought the entire 15 lap distance providing spectators with a dazzling display of skill and courage.
Stanaway raced to the lead on the opening lap but was soon pegged back by Percat and the two traded the lead several times until Percat caught a wheel on the grass, and for a moment looked at being another casualty of the deceptively tricky Tasmanian circuit.
Percat dropped back to fourth position and Spectrum drive Pye picked up where Percat left off, swapping the lead with Stanaway on several occasions before succumbing to the New Zealander’s speed.
“Wow that was a pretty awesome race,” Stanaway beamed.
“Nick, Scott and I had a great battle and it probably could have gone either way, but thankfully I had the speed to hang on at the end … hats off though to Nick and Scott, it made for some great racing,” the 16 year old said.
“We’ve finally found the speed we’ve been searching for which is confidence boosting going into Darwin … hopefully this is the start of some bigger and better things.”
Stanaway, in his charge for the lead, also set a another new Symmons Plains lap record in his BRM prepared Mygale, a 55.30sec lap, an improvement of .27sec on his record breaking lap yesterday.