The NZ Suzuki Swift Sport Cup field took the track last weekend at Christchurch’s Ruapuna Raceway, and for Hamilton’s Shaun Lawrence it was a chance to get his title bid resurrected following the well publicised opening round rollover which destroyed his car.
The Shaun Lawrence Racing team headed to Christchurch with one clear intention, to come away with some all-important Championship points. With the series being contested over a total of eighteen races across six individual rounds, Lawrence had already missed one race finish and even at this early stage, that meant any margin for error was all-but gone.
After qualifying seventh for the opening race, Lawrence ultimately finished the race in tenth. Eager to make amends in race two, he was spun going into the first turn and the ensuing damage meant that there was no option other than to head into pit lane for some quick repair work by the crew.
“It was so frustrating” explains Lawrence. “We were going along fine and I basically got cleaned out. There was nothing else I could do to avoid coming in because the bodywork had been pushed into the wheel”.
Thanks to some slick service work by the team, Lawrence got back on track and avoided going a full lap down on the leaders. The third and final race was the reversegrid format, which saw Lawrence start from the third row and after a strong start, he quickly made his way up to second spot.
With the lead in sight, the normally reliable Swift began jamming in gear, and ultimately culminated in the total loss of fourth gear altogether. Although this should have put pay to Lawrence’s charge for the lead, he pushed as hard as possible and ultimately finished a mere 1 second behind as the chequered flag signalled the end of the race, the second overall cementing the teams best result yet in the Suzuki Swift Sport Cup.
After a Christmas break the team head to Teretonga Park, Invercargill for the third round of the championship.
