Nissans Score Podium Finish
SAM Racing's privately-run Nissan Dealer Team of Marco da Cunha and Darryn Lobb scored a well-deserved podium finish in round three of the Bridgestone Production Car Championship in Port Elizabeth at the weekend. The pair of Tubular Nissan 350Zs scored valuable championship points in a race that seemed to favour the all-wheel drive Audi quattros.
"Race one was very challenging. We only managed to qualify 9th (Marco) and 10th (Darryn), which immediately put us under real pressure on a circuit where there are not that many places to overtake," said team principal Lee Philips. The two Sasol-fuelled privateer Nissans gave a good account of themselves in the opening 10-lap race, with Lobb managing to get ahead of his team-mate and finish 8th, behind the factory Nissans of Leeroy Poulter (6th) and Tschops Sipuka (7th).
Lobb, the reigning Shelby CanAm sports car champion, who is in his first season with the team, was happy to have made up two places and scored a championship point. "It was not an easy race. Ten laps around the (3,92-km) Aldo Scribante circuit goes very quickly (in less than 12 minutes, actually) and you don't get many chances to improve your position. I enjoyed my first outing at Scribante. It's quite a technical circuit and very abrasive, so tyre wear is a problem"
Da Cunha finished ninth, just four tenths of a second behind his team-mate. "You can't expect to score well when you only qualify on the fifth row of the grid. I was pleased to see we finished right behind the factory Nissans, who had qualified third (Poulter) and fifth (Sipuka).
With the partially inverted grid traditionally used for the second race, where the top eight finishers from race one start in reverse order, Lobb found himself on pole position for the rolling start, alongside Sipuka. The privateer led the race for eight of the 12 laps, before first Sipuka and then eventual race-winner Shaun Watson-Smith (Audi A4 quattro) got past.
"I was slowed by class B back markers on lap nine," said Lobb," which gave Sipuka a chance to run up the inside of me entering the main straight at the end of the lap. We touched lightly and I lost the right side rear view mirror. As a result, I didn't see Watson-Smith following in Sipuka's slip stream and I left the door open for him to pass me too.
"It was a great race and I really enjoyed being in the lead. I tried my best, but we just didn't have the fire power to hold off Tschops and Shaun. We might have done it if it had been a 10-lapper, like the first race."
Da Cunha, just missing out on benefiting from the reverse grid, found himself embroiled in an excellent scrap with the BMW 330i duo of Anthony Taylor and Etienne van der Linde. He eventually finished seventh, two places better than his starting position, to give himself a hard-earned sixth overall for the day.
"This was always going to be a hard weekend for the team," said Philips. "We were missing two of our most experienced technical staff – crew chief Michael Allers has a prematurely-born son in hospital and Marco's race technician, Tony Almeida, attended his father-in-law's funeral. Our thoughts were with them throughout the weekend." We would like to thank our sponsors for their continued support namely Tubular Technical Construction, EXA Motor Group, SASOL, Nissan Diesel, Valid Value, SAX Shocks, Signs For You, Tri-Dent Paint & Panel, Hi Tech Mag Repairs, GP Windscreens & NX Gen.
The next round of the Bridgestone Production Car Championship is at Zwartkops in Pretoria West on May 23 and 24.
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