Max Vidau moved to the Gold Coast six months ago to begin his tenure with TekworkX Motorsport both as a driver in the Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup Championship and a full-time mechanic.
The move from Adelaide saw a major change in lifestyle along with the added benefits of working directly with the team daily, as he completes his first full time season in Carrera Cup. Vidau works with the team’s Toyota 86 drivers as a mentor as well, attending their events to lend a helping hand on the tools and coach the youthful drivers.
Vidau is currently fifth in the standings with four podiums to his name and a maiden round win, all coming at the season opening Australian Grand Prix. Since then his best result has been seventh, on three occasions, after a few moments of misfortune including being pushed off track in Darwin and being caught unaware by oil on the road in Winton.
This weekend the series reaches the halfway point of the season in Townsville, a circuit on which Vidau has never raced. TekworkX however contested Carrera Cup at the Reid Park Street Circuit last year with Youlden and claimed second in the 2020 Townsville Tin Tops, Super Stuttgart class – an event which marked the maiden outing for TekworkX Motorsport as a team.
“Coming from Adelaide up here to the Gold Coast was a huge jump, but the team helped me settle in right away and the weather certainly didn’t hurt either,” said Vidau.
“The idea of being with the team is one I was really keen for, it creates a super close family environment. I get to prepare all the Porsche’s, we have our two Carrera Cup cars and two in Sprint Challenge, so working closely with our engineer Andre Nada means I can understand the setup in depth.
“In terms of on the race track we need to ensure we’re rolling out the gate on Friday with a bit of a quicker car.
“We’ve had some tricky Friday’s where we are chasing setup which puts us back in the field on the timesheets and in traffic for qualifying and it snowballs from there.
“It’s not like we are well off the mark, in fact we’ve been pretty much on it and inside the top 10 every round but if you’re not on the front two rows it’s a bit of a brawl back there. Qualifying this weekend will be quick and busy, everyone knows how important it is to get an extra lap in so there might be some fighting for track position.
“First time at Townsville for me, it will be awesome weekend of learning and it will be interesting to see how the car goes on a true street circuit for the first time,” concluded Vidau.
Round four of the Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup Championship takes place at the NTI Townsville 500 from July 8-10.