Bamber wins Toyota race

Wanganui’s Earl Bamber has won the 15-lap Toyota Racing Series race at Taupo having started from pole in the Triple X Motorsport run VnC Cocktails Mad Butcher Toyota FT40.

With a winning margin of 0.6 of a second, Bamber’s win eats in to the overall series lead held by Mitch Evans, cutting the deficit from 32 points to 26. Although Bamber led for the entire race, he said the strategy was to do what was required to stay in front and conserve the tyres for the remaining two races on the programme.

“What we are hunting is points, so the goal was the race win and save the tyres as much as we can because we’ve got three decent length races and one set of tyres,” said Bamber.

“With the V8’s and Porsches racing here the track has changed slightly since qualifying this morning and the car wasn’t as balanced as we’d setup. So we’ll look at the data and even though we won the race we can still make it better.”

New Plymouth’s Stefan Webling suffered in the second Triple X Motorsport car, bending the steering on the left-front tyre of the Horizon Energy Services Miles Toyota. Having been a top-four pacesetter, the 21-year-old said he was unsure what bent one of the front arms that forced him to pit mid-race for the team to try realigning his wheel.

The final of five rounds on the 2010 calendar, tomorrow’s two races around the 3.5 kilometre circuit includes the 20-lap Denny Hulme memorial trophy feature in the morning, with a season concluding ten-lap sprint at 4:10pm.

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Results: Toyota Racing Series race one – Taupo (15 laps)

Pos, Driver, Town

1. E Bamber, Wanganui, Triple X Motorsport
2. M Evans, Auckland, +0.652s
3. S McNeill, Palmerston North, +9.502s
4. J McNee, Wellington, +10.921
5. A Waite, Auckland, +11.203
6. A Wootten, Auckland, +20.466
7. S Webling, New Plymouth, Triple X Motorsports, +1m03.604