Heinrich claims opening race in style
Reigning champion Joel Heinrich claimed first blood in the sixth round of the 2024 Battery World Aussie Racing Car Super Series, beating series leader Kody Garland in the opening race.
With the sun shining over the famous Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit, the battle for top honours proved an entertaining affair as Heinrich eventually steered the Osborn’s Motorsport Ford Mustang to a two second victory over the pole sitter in Garland.
Garland had a decent start to the race in his MTA NSW Mustang and held his position for the first half - holding off an aggressive Heinrich for as long as he could until the South Australian eventually made a move on the seventh lap.
From that point onwards, Heinrich slowly grew the gap between the series leader, reaching the chequered flag with a comfortable lead.
Rounding out the top three for the first of four races was Western Sydney Motorsport’s Cody Brewczynski, who started where he finished despite being caught in a skirmish with Corish Motorsports’ Mason Harvey for the race’s middle stint.
The two traded places back and forth between laps three and seven before Brewczynskimeventually charged away to cross the line more than eight seconds ahead of Harvey.
Harvey’s outright fourth place did earn him the Rookie Cup win as well as confirming an unchanged top four from qualifying, while Action line Marking’s Scott Dornan made up the final place in the outright top five, as well as securing the Gold Cup win.
It was a highly impressive performance for Dornan, whose slow start saw him drop from seventh to 10th on the opening lap before making up five positions in three laps and comfortably making it to the finish line ahead of the chasing pack.
Behind him was pure chaos right from the get go as Scott Andriske, Kent Quinn, Nathan Williams, Reece Chapman and Jordan Freestone enjoyed a race-long battle with each other that ultimately decided the remaining positions within the top 10 by less than two seconds.
In the end, it was Riskie Racing’s Andriske who claimed sixth by .335 of a second over Masters Cup leader Kent Quinn in the Norganic Proteins Australia Mustang. A further three and half tenths behind was Competition Coatings' Nathan Williams.
Rounding out the top 10 was Motorsport 25’s Reece Chapman, who climbed from 12th to ninth during the 10-lap affair, and Corish Motorsports’ Jordan Freestone.
Just one race remains for the rest of the day, with the next outing at 4:40pm AEST.
