21/8/06 | F4000 guns loaded as battle heads to Kelly country

2006 Yokohama Australian Formula 4000 Drivers Championship

PREVIEW: Round 6 – Winton Motor Raceway

FOR the second time in 2006, Formula 4000 teams and drivers will descend upon Winton Motor Raceway in rural Victoria for the sixth round of the 2006 Yokohama Australian Formula 4000 Drivers Championship on August 26-27.

With only three rounds remaining in the 8-round series, this weekend’s round on the 3.0km circuit just outside of Benalla will see resumption to the season-long title battle between championship leader Ty Hanger and Derek Pingel.

After five rounds, Hanger leads the championship on 140 points to Pingel’s tally of 136, although on adjusted points whereby each driver drops their worst two race results, the pointscore sees Pingel on top by only 4 points from Hanger.

The tightness of the championship pointscores, standard and adjusted, underline the parity of performance between the two drivers this season. With 10 races completed so far, Pingel and Hanger have dominated race results with Pingel taking 6 race wins to Hanger’s 4, while both drivers have also hogged the share of qualifying sessions this season with Pingel taking 3 pole positions to Hanger’s 2.

Both drivers will be looking to add to their championship points accounts this weekend, but out to make life hard for the leaders will be Sam Dale, fresh from a maiden round win at Adelaide International Raceway last month, Les Crampton, the rapidly improving Matthew Fox and returning Italian star Davide Amaduzzi.

Amaduzzi, who impressed on debut at Queensland Raceway in June with a 2^nd and 3^rd placing is expected to throw a serious spanner into the works of the title battle and will no doubt benefit from a two-day test recently at Calder Park and Winton.

Bologna-born Amaduzzi’s performance on debut was promising given no prior testing mileage in the F4000 and no experience of Queensland Raceway, so with a round of racing and two test days under his belt heading to Winton, the Italian is more than capable of taking an upset win.

The weather forecast for the weekend’s event sees cool and fine conditions on Saturday afternoon with light showers expected for Sunday’s races, a prospect that drivers and teams will be prepared for following a mix of torrential rain, breaking sunshine and cold winds when F4000 last visited Winton for the third round of the championship in May.

On that occasion, it was Hanger who took two dominant race wins in inclement conditions while Pingel had a weekend to forget following off-track excursions and a collision in both races.

A full round report of this weekend’s proceedings will be online at f4000.com on Monday (28/8) following the end of the round.