2008/2009 SEASON UNDERWAY

The first round of the New Zealand Formula First National Championship kicked off today at Taupo Motorsport Park with a strong field of twenty four drivers fronting up for qualifying.

Michael Shepherd took pole position in qualifying today with a solid performance early on in the session. (click photo for larger view) Michael Shepherd set the early pace in a rain affected session with a time of 1:50.420. Despite the first few laps being dry, the rain began to fall on the third lap, only to cease moments later, leaving the track to dry once again. As a result of the changing conditions, all drivers set their fastest times at either the very beginning, or the very end of the session.

Speedsport “Star of Tomorrow” Scholarship winner Nick Cassidy, driving his first National Championship event, made the most of the drying conditions at the end of the session and placed his Sabre second on the grid ahead of team mate Matthew Stubbs. Ryan Hellier continued his strong winter series form by taking fourth on the grid ahead of Matt Gibson, rookie Bramwell King, Michael Neville, David Ruthven and Jamie Gaskin. Series stalwart Bryan McConkey rounded out the top ten.

Shepherd was conservative in his approach toward the weekend;

“It was interesting that the times out there were so slow today, we are close to two seconds off last season’s times. But we’re starting from the front, it’s early days yet and our main focus is to make the podium in each race this weekend.”

Ian Foster struggled with an engine misfire for the entire session and was unable to post a competitive lap time. Foster will start from last on the grid for tomorrow's first race. (click photo for larger view) Ian Foster, who is expected to be one of the main title challengers this season, had his season get off to a terrible start when his car developed a misfire during qualifying. Foster, who finished second in last season’s title chase, did not manage to complete a single lap at speed and ended up last on the grid – with a time some 23 seconds shy of Shepherd’s. Foster immediately drove home to Auckland at the end of qualifying to pick up some replacement parts that he hoped would solve his problems. Another to experience difficulties in qualifying was Bradley McDonald. The young Wanganui mechanic could not quite tune his carburetors to his liking and was caught out by the rain whilst sitting in the pit lane making changes to carburetor settings. A notable difference in the racing format this season sees the Formula First championship run all three of the weekend’s races on the Sunday of each event. The format change only applies to televised rounds and has been put in place to allow the television crews to cover all races from each of the weekends, as opposed to just the two Sunday races (as has been the norm up till now). The new format promises to inject excitement into the weekend as competitors will have less time to diagnose and repair any mechanical woes or crash damage that may be incurred. Ironically, the new format is likely to have aided Foster today, due to the fact that he did not have to contest the weekend’s first race with his car in difficulty.

Racing begins tomorrow at 10:00 am.