Nick Ross has finished round two of the BNT V8s Championship at Pukekohe in third place overall for the weekend.
Going into the weekend as the Championship leader with a narrow points lead over Australian driver Jack Smith, Ross qualified his Total Lubricants Nissan Altima in second place just 0.133 of a second behind his rival Smith.
Though happy with the qualifying effort, Ross said the result could have been better if it had not been for an engine issue that developed in the car.
“To qualify in second place was a good result considering the car developed a misfire with a few minutes to go, which may have cost us a shot at going a bit quicker,” said Ross.
Having fixed the misfire issue before the first race, the Total Lubricants Nissan Altima then developed a cam sensor issue, slowing his race pace.
“We knew we had more speed in the car from qualifying, so we were confident heading into the first race, but then a cam sensor developed which was disappointing.
Battling with a wounded car, the Cambridge driver’s race went from bad to worse when he had contact with Jack Smith at the tight hairpin corner of the Pukekohe circuit.
“The car was suffering from the cam sensor issue from lap one, so I was struggling to keep the other drivers behind me. Then the incident with Jack Smith where I got turned around, there was nothing in that, it was just a racing incident.”
Ross continued on and salvaged a fifth place finish, securing a valuable 49 points for his Championship campaign.
An uneventful second race of the weekend saw Ross finish back on the podium in third place securing a further 60 points for his Championship total.
“In that second race, we just weren’t fast enough to challenge Jack Smith and Lance Hughes up ahead of us. We just didn’t have any balance in the car.”
Starting the final race of the weekend on the front row, where the top four cars were reversed, Ross says he had to capitalise on the starting position and ensure he got a good getaway.
“I had to make the most of being on the front row and get a good start and get away from the guys behind me. The car was a lot better, Dale my engineer made some radical changes from the race earlier on Sunday morning and it seemed to be working a lot better.
Holding the lead of the final race from start to finish, Ross ended his weekend on a high taking the win and the maximum 75 points.
“A good weekend, but not a great weekend, looking forward to heading down to Cromwell for Round 3 in January.”
Ross now sits in second place in the Championship with 401 points, 25 points behind Jack Smith.
Round Three of the BNT V8s Championship will be at the Highlands Motorsport Park near Cromwell – January 12-13.
