Max Vidau will eye off a level playing field this weekend when the Dunlop Super2 Series heads to Mount Panorama for round five of the season.
The South Australian has endured a challenging run throughout 2024 but has nevertheless been the leading rookie in the series ever since his exceptional performance on Sunday in Perth. Vidau enters the penultimate round of the season fourth in the points, and first in the fight for Rookie of the Year honours.
With a large majority of the field in at least their second year of Super2 racing, or graduating from Super3, Vidau has been left with an enormous learning curve relative to his rivals at each round so far in 2024. That disadvantage falls by the wayside this weekend, with the unique make-up of the 2024 Dunlop Series calendar making this the second trip to Bathurst for the year.
There is also an element of unlocked potential left in the tank for Vidau from his debut weekend of Super2 racing, which came at Bathurst. The 23-year-old had blitzed the field in the opening sector in qualifying for Sunday’s race, before a power steering failure heading up the mountain left Vidau to wrestle his car back to a 12th place result for the session.
Last time out at Sandown proved Vidau’s toughest challenge in what has been an often-frustrating rookie campaign, in spite of his lofty standing in the points tally. In a weekend of constantly changing conditions, the team spent much of the round chasing setup and playing catch up after a broken sway bar hampered their efforts in Friday’s practice sessions.
Round five of the 2024 Super2 Series takes place from October 10-14 as part of the Repco Bathurst 1000.
Quotes:
Max Vidau – Anderson Motorsport #17
“It’s been a frustrating year at times, I think it’s a testament to our potential that we’re still sitting in such a good spot on the ladder in spite of that,” said Vidau.
“Over the year I’ve really adapted to the driving style of the Supercar, using the brake a lot more and in places where you probably wouldn’t in the Porsche. That’s exaggerated somewhere like Bathurst, across the top of the Mountain you’re using the brake to get it turned quite a bit in the Mustang.
“At the start of the year we spent most of the weekend learning how to drive the track in a Supercar, as opposed to dialling in the right setup. With that said we were a bit unlucky with the power steering failure in Qualifying for Bathurst, and there was a lot of speed in the car that went unrewarded as a result.
“Now that we’ve got the knowledge under our belt, we can really try to master our Friday programme. We’ve had some challenging Fridays this season which have just held us back a little, but it should be more of a level playing field for us this time around. It’s a home round for the Anderson Motorsport boys, so we’re all pretty motivated to put on a good show this weekend,” concluded Vidau.