Chris Perini has claimed his second win of the season in the opening race in Round 3 of the 2022 Radical Cup Australia at Sydney Motorsport Park.
The series leader started the 50-minute race from second but was caught in an early scuffle at turn two. Perini was tagged in the rear, turned almost 90 degrees before being tagged again in a way that straightened the car up. He was lucky to continue but dropped back to fourth by the end of the opening lap.
Peter Carr started the Garth Walden Racing #31 in third, and missed the chaos at turn two to jump up to second.
Bad news came the way of Carr though, he was handed a five-second penalty for coming out of line on the rolling grid start.
He took the lead away from pole sitter Elliott Schutte on lap five when he got the nose down the inside at turn two, before running around the outside through turn three and finally in front around the outside at turn four. Perini followed, he got by Schutte in turn six and up into second.
Carr led his first laps in the category in just his third round. Perini stayed in behind Carr as the compulsory pit stop window opened. The two leaders decided to pit on lap 10.
Carr handed over the driving duties to Peter Paddon, and served their five second penalty, gifting the lead over to Perini.
Perini came out with just over a two second lead, and quickly that margin blew out as Paddon was nursing a throttle position sensor just three laps into his stint.
The issue however was presenting to Paddon like a fuel surge issue, so Paddon was lifting and coasting to try and save fuel towards the end of the race.
Perini vaulted out to an 11 second lead as he led home a Garth Walden Racing one-two with Paddon/Carr in second while Zig Fuhrmeister finished third.
Caleb Sumich was fourth followed by Schutte in fifth. Brad Neilson charged up to sixth late in the race after a thrilling move by Adam Lisle at turn one on lap 22. Sebastian Fiorenza was seventh while Lisle dropped back to eighth. Warwick Morris and Bill Medland completed the top ten.
The second race of round three will be contested on Sunday morning at Sydney Motorsport Park at 9:45am AEST.
Quotes:
Chris Perini, Garth Walden Racing “I feel like I was a little more comfortable in the car that race. Qualifying didn’t go to plan unfortunately and I think I perhaps left a little bit on the table there and had a couple of car issues so the boys were really good in sorting all that out. It was perfect that race and the result rewards it.”
Peter Carr, Garth Walden Racing “I didn’t realise at the start, I was a little bit out of my grid box. I’ve raced the Aussie Racing Cars for a long time and we’ve always done safety car starts two by two and just habit I’ve always, just so I can see, I’ve pulled out a little bit so in our pit stop we had five seconds.”
Peter Paddon, Garth Walden Racing “I was ragging the car, like I was using all of the grip and it had bags of it, but I was losing 1.5 seconds per lap, like coming out of turn two in third gear and coming out of turn eight in third gear that sort of thing. So, I was losing a lot of time.”