RED BULL HRT continue strong form in TNSC
TKA MEDIA NEWS
It's been a somewhat perfect weekend for Hyundai, more notably the factory Hyundai Racing team outfit of RBHRT.
McKenzie Stewart notched up the perfect weekend by delivering a back-to-back performance with a win on Saturday and Sundays reverse race format, helping him elevate up to third in the drivers table, 60 points behind his championship leading teammate of Brett Keenan who notched up another perfect ratio weekend of two straight 4th placed finishes.
For Keenan this adds to his double 3rd places at the Gardens Supersprint two weeks ago and for his efforts continues to lead the championship, however the gap now reduced to 3 points over rival driver and team of JD Motorsports and Mark Bratby.
"Race one was anyones game, that race was full on hardcore, bumping, bashing, punting every which way you went, you couldn't even relax for a moment because if you did you'd have been swamped by a driver behind, you had to be on point the whole step of the way and it was fantastic." Keenan told TKA MEDIA NEWS as of this morning.
"Mark, McKenzie and myself were just hammer and tongs with each other, it gets intense when you're even punting your teammate off the road and getting it back, but that's the beauty about touring cars, you give and take. Slowing down to drop my penalty on the last lap was not a smart move as it gave Josh the incentive to make a move and steal third, but the sheer hardcore nature of that race just made you forget about the result."
"The second race was a lot tougher we just kept burning our tyres out too early to mount any attacks and those BMWs were just quick all around so it was hard to establish a good fight with them in the long run, hard luck to Bailey for his fuel dramas but he pushed for a result and that's what I think mattered to him was that he had rather gone down fighting, than lose ground with a stop." Keenan added.
The mentioning of Bailey came when the Cross Motorsport MOBIL 1 racing #22 entries dropped from effective 3rd to 6th on the final lap when the young Australian ran out of fuel on the dying stretches of the 2nd race.
His teammate faired no better, showing little to no pace all weekend around but managed to gather needed points in an attempt to stay in the championship game.
Collisions and obstructions saw Amirul and Mattias wind up leaving the season in race one of which subsequently saw them excluded from the race 1 result and relegated to the back of the grid for Race 2, both would finish 5th and 8th in the second race.
Newcomer driver Matthew Elya sporting an IRWIN TOOLS Hyundai Genesis leased out by Team Keenan Autosport had a pretty rough baptism of fire into the Trans-Nation Supercars but still managed 11th though last of the runners to bag some valuable points.
The Trans-Nation Supercars championship takes a break for the week with the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship catching peoples interest.
The TNSC will return to racing next week on March the 9th and 10th for Round 3 and races 5 and 6 at Fuji for the Fuji Speedway Supersprint.