Photo: Euan Cameron
Blake Knowles was the biggest star of the third round of the New Zealand Formula Ford season at Teretonga as the series headed to the South Island.
Daniel Brown set the pace in qualifying, edging William Neale by 0.024 seconds and Knowles by 0.093s while points leader Alex Crosbie was 0.338s back in fifth place.
An engine failure for Dylan Grant meant he missed race one, which Neale went on to win ahead of Knowles and Brown. Crosbie failed to get to the halfway point of the race, and title outsider Potter also retired.
Fastest lap put Knowles on pole for race two ahead of Brown, and four more drivers joined their lead fight. Eventually Knowles prevailed by 0.214s, with Crosbie was a further tenth of a second back in third.
Brown, Blake Dowdall and Sebastian Manson completed the top six, and were all within a second of the winner.
Knowles had an easier job to win race three from pole, doing so by 2.124s ahead of Neale. He had a gap to Dwodall, while Brown beat Manson to fourth in a photo finish by 0.009s. Crosbie finished sixth, just a further 0.182s behind.
The penultimate round of the season ended with another win for Knowles, this time after a lengthy battle with Brown in which they swapped places multiple times.
Grant, after finishing ninth and 17th in races two and three, had his title hopes diminised by having to sit out the action again in race four. Potter also had more trouble as he crashed out several laps from the finish.
Brown is now Crosbie’s main title rival, with Manson not too far behind him.
Results round-up
Race 1 (10 laps)
1 William Neale 10m47.980s
2 Blake Knowles +0.373s
3 Daniel Brown +1.387s
4 Sebastian Manson +4.878s
5 Caleb Byers +5.251s
6 Jack Noble-Adams +9.964s
7 Dylan Petch +9.979s
8 Jake Byrant +11.133s
9 Daniel Kelly +15.021s
10 Blake Dowdall +16.070s
Pole: Brown, 1m03.347s
Fastest lap: Knowles, 1m03.316s
Race 2 (10 laps)
1 Knowles 10m47.518s
2 Neale +0.214s
3 Alex Crosbie +0.306s
4 Brown +0.682s
5 Dowdall +0.847s
6 Manson +0.974s
7 Byers +4.813s
8 Mason Potter +4.935s
9 Dylan Grant +5.360s
10 Petch +5.995s
FL: Manson, 1m03.587s
Race 3 (10 laps)
1 Knowles 10m47.048s
2 Neale +2.124s
3 Dowdall +3.600s
4 Brown +4.209s
5 Manson +4.218s
6 Crosbie +4.400s
7 Byers +6.590s
8 Potter +6.699s
9 Noble-Adams +6.749s
10 Thomas Flynn +13.875s
FL: Crosbie, 1m03.514s
Race 4 (11 laps)
1 Knowles 13m13.031s
2 Brown +0.701s
3 Neale +1.563s
4 Crosbie +2.183s
5 Manson +2.638s
6 Dowdall +3.141
7 Byers +3.617s
8 Noble-Adams +4.206s
9 Petch +5.056s
10 Byrant +5.999s
FL: Brown, 1m03.546s
Championship standings
1 Crosbie 709 2 Brown 657 3 Manson 640 4 Knowles 599 5 Neale 552 6 Dowdall 532 7 Grant 505 8 Byers 492 9 Noble-Adams 457 10 Potter 409