Arise Racing’s Elliott Schutte claimed his third win of the 2022 Radical Cup Australia Series with victory in race two of Round three at Sydney Motorsport Park, while a fourth for Chris Perini was enough for his second round win of the season.
In what was his first race weekend at the venue, Schutte led home an Arise Racing one-two with Adam Lisle and Jordan Oon second.
Schutte started the final race of the weekend from fourth and fell back to fifth in the opening few laps.
Meanwhile, pole sitter Mitch Nielson dropped back to fourth as Peter Paddon built up a comfortable margin out in front after starting on the outside front row.
Race one winner Perini held onto second during the opening laps, but was struggling to stay in touch with Paddon.
Perini, Oon and Nielson were all locked in a fierce battle for second before Nielson pulled off a stunning three wide pass on the inside at turn one – Oon was lucky not to collect the back of Neilson as Perini was shuffled from second to fourth.
Nielson closed a five-second margin to be on the rear of Paddon as he battled with tyre life.
Paddon dived into the pits on lap 11 as the compulsory pit stop window opened, handing over the driving duties to Carr while Nielson stayed out.
After a quicker 5.5 second pit stop, Lisle jumped Carr in the pits as he took over from Oon in the #35 Arise Racing Radical SR3 RSX.
Schutte was powering through the field - after getting by Perini just before the pit stop, he passed Carr down the inside at turn eight then got by Lisle at turn two on lap 21 to be in second.
At the same time, Nielson came into the pits just as the pit window was closing.
He had a big enough margin to be able to complete the pit stop and come back out in the race lead – until there was trouble in the stop.
As Brad Nielson put his seat insert in during the driver change, one of the seat belts got caught underneath the insert.
The pair lost almost 50 seconds in the pits, and dropped them back to sixth.
Out in front, Schutte pulled clear to claim the race win by almost seven seconds, ahead of Lisle/Oon and Carr/Paddon in third.
Perini finished in fourth while Caleb Sumich completed the top-five.
They were followed by Sebastian Fiorenza, Brad Neilson/Mitch Neilson, Ash Samadi, Zig Fuhrmeister and Bradley Russell completing the top-10.
For the round Perini finished just two points ahead of Paddon/Carr who were just one point ahead of Schutte.
Perini now extends his lead at the top of the championship to 12 points over Paddon who vaults up to second after coming into the round fourth.
The 2022 Radical Cup Australia Series heads to Queensland Raceway next for round four, with the Motorsport Australia Championships event to be held between August 5-7.
Quotes:
Arise Racing, Elliott Schutte
“We made a gamble with the setup, after the race yesterday the car just wasn’t good, it was too slippery. So it was either going to be good or terrible and it was really good. So just unexpected especially at this track because I haven’t been here before.”