Hidden Valley Race weekend wrap
The Giz gave SBR win number two for season 2011
The weekend’s Sky City Triple Crown and April’s ITM400 Hamilton may have been polar opposites in terms of weather, but they’ll go down in the record books as providing the same two winners.
Rick Kelly and Shane van Gisbergen took the spoils in Races 12 and 13 respectively, with both wins coming courtesy of late Safety Car interventions.
While Kelly dodged the mayhem at a late-race restart to win on Saturday, it was tyre strategy that saw van Gisbergen vault up the order in the waning laps on Sunday.
The support races too saw plenty of action, with the marquee race in the 2011 Formula 3 Australian Drivers’ Championship, the City of Darwin Cup, falling to a driver that was not even entered for the meeting – Kristian Lindbom.
It was advantage General Motors in the Touring Car Masters and V8 Utes, with Andrew Miedecke and Kim Jane taking the respective round wins.
The Utes saw four different winners in as many races, including a maiden success for Ryan Hansford on Sunday morning.
Team BRM won the City of Darwin Cup with Lindbom at the wheel
See below for Speedcafe.com’s coverage of the weekend’s race action.
V8 Supercars
Winterbottom scores provisional pole in Darwin
Winterbottom takes scorching pole position
Rick Kelly wins exciting Race 12 in Darwin
Winterbottom takes Race 13 pole in Darwin
Shane van Gisbergen takes second career win
Formula 3
Brit takes opening F3 win in Darwin
Kristian Lindbom takes maiden F3 round win
Andrew Miedecke was too strong in the Touring Car Masters
Touring Car Masters
Miedecke beats Richards and Bowe in TCM
Miedecke wraps up Touring Car Masters round
V8 Utes
David Sieders takes the lead in V8 Utes
Kim Jane takes V8 Utes round in Darwin