Lights-to-flag victory for Bilinski in FRegional Oceania’s 300th race

Photo: TGR NZ

Roman Bilinski took a lights-to-flag victory in the opening Formula Regional Oceania race of the weekend at Manfeild. 

It was a relatively trouble-free 300th race of the championship, which started off as the Toyota Racing Series in 2005.

After starting from pole, Bilinski got a good getaway and created a comfortable gap to Christian Mansell in second. The two later were running together when Mansell suddenly slowed down to a halt with an apparent electrical problem. The Giles Motorsport driver managed to get his car going again, but had dropped down to 10th place. 

Nico Lacorte inherited second, having passed Liam Sceats for third on the opening lap. Despite putting in the fastest lap of the race, he could not close in on the leader and finished 3.652 seconds behind Bilinski. 

There was a little drama on the opening lap when Titus Sherlock spun from the tail end of the top 10. Those behind him managed to avoid his car, some taking to the grass to do so, and there was no contact. He was able to continue and passed three drivers to finish 14th.

The main battle during the race was for what would become third place and took place between Sceats and Kaleb Ngatoa. The latter kept the pressure on and Sceats locked up a number of times, and their battle drew in Tommy Smith then, late in the race, the recovering Christian Mansell as well.

Mansell was the only driver in the fight to make up a position, taking fifth from Smith before the chequered flag. 

Michael Shin had closed onto the back of the train by the last lap, but ran out of time before he could fight for position. 

Gerrard Xie finished eighth after an earlier battle with Shin, while Patrick Woods-Toth and Alex Crosbie completed the top 10.

Race results (22 laps)