Despite showing race leading speed across the entire weekend Max Vidau and Luke Youlden recorded just one top five between them, at Winton Raceway for round two of the Porsche Carrera Cup Championship.
The TekworkX Motorsport pair qualified eighth (Vidau) and ninth (Youlden) after sitting amongst the front two rows for much of the 10 minute session. As everyone’s tyres came up to temperature on the final flying laps Vidau and Youlden weren’t able to improve their times.
The opening race saw Luke rise to sixth on the opening lap, where he stayed for the rest of the race as he battled hard on the back of the fight for the top five. Vidau recovered from losing a spot on lap one to finish seventh, right behind Youlden. The duo ran line astern for much of the race.
Sunday’s two races both brought bad luck to the team. The highlight of the weekend came in race two when Youlden broke into the top five with another fast start. Vidau unfortunately was brought undone while battling with Youlden when he hit water on the track, from a broken radiator, which sent him spinning off to finish ninth.
Race three saw Luke with an excellent opportunity to jump on to the podium and he was challenging those spots in to turn one, before he was hit by another car and forced off the road. The contact also caused minor damage to the #53 and Youlden limped home in 12th. Vidau had his best start of the weekend but after gaining a spot on the opening lap was unable to go any further forward due to the lack of passing opportunities at Winton. The #72 finished seventh, gaining an extra spot post-race with a penalty for a competitor in front.
Quotes:
Luke Youlden
“Qualifying didn’t go to plan, we took a few gambles and they didn’t quite pay of so we ended up down the order a bit.
“We were able to make a really good start in race one and gained a few spots, considering the Grand Prix we had it was good to consolidate a strong result to start the weekend. It all looked good again in race two, moving up to fifth. It was pretty processional but the important thing is we moved forward.
“I got an excellent start in race three, basically jumped an entire row but then we got taken out by on of the Sonic cars. I went through the grass and re-joined at the back of the Pro field but we had some damage and the steering was out so the handling wasn’t to flash.
“Positively we made some changes across the weekend which made the car feel a lot better so I’m looking forward to Darwin.”
Max Vidau
“Saturday wasn’t too bad; we just missed the setup in qualifying which is why we ended up eighth. I had a bit of an average start to race one and got beaten to turn one by Luke (Youlden), from there I was able to follow him around.
“Sunday was a bit rough; we were running really well and then caught some water on the road with no flags or warning whatsoever which sent me off. Managed to at least hold ninth so we started inside the top 10 for the final race.
“The car was really fast in the final race, we had the second fastest lap but unfortunately outside of the opening lap it’s just impossible to pass at Winton as it’s too tight.
“On to the next one, the car is fairly straight and we’ll work on it before Darwin.”
