Lindblad cements FRegional Oceania title advantage with sixth win

Photo: TGR NZ

Arvid Lindblad goes into the final Formula Regional Oceania round with a big points lead after claiming his sixth victory of the season in race three at Teretonga.

Matias Zagazeta started on pole position, but M2 Competition team-mate Arvid Lindblad made the better start to draw alongside before turn one.

The inside line belonged to Zagazeta, which was initially an advantage, but Lindblad was able to stay on the throttle on the outside line and sweep past into the lead.

Nikita Johnson was third, and MTEC Motorsport’s Patrick Heuzenroeder prevented an M2 lockout of the top four by passing Michael Shin.

The safety car then neutralised the action as Kiwi Motorsport’s Jett Bowling had made a mistake and crashed into the barriers at turn one.

Race control red flagged the race on lap three, and later restarted it behind the safety car on lap four.

Lindblad was eventually free to lead the field back to racing speeds on lap six and he made a big jump on Zagazeta. Giles Motorsport’s Tommy Smith thought about making a pass on M2’s Sebastian Manson for seventh but it was too risky, and soon he was under attack from team-mate Alex Crosbie and MTEC’s Zack Scoular.

There was 0.86 seconds between the top two after a lap of racing, and that had doubled by lap 12 when Zagazeta made a mistake into turn one and Shin – who had earlier got back ahead of Heuzenroeder and cleared Johnson – pounced to snatch second.

He then faced a 3.34s gap to make up on Lindblad, whith he could not eat into lap 25 of 30 when the margin was 3.6s. At that point Shin started making small gains lap after lap, and he finished 1.9s behind Lindblad.

Zagazeta was a further two seconds behind, under later pressure from Heuzenroeder, and Johnson was a distant fifth but did move back up to second in the standings past Scoular. He finished eighth, behind MTEC’s Josh Pierson and Manson.

Race results (30 laps)