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Sebastian Manson earns first FRegional Oceania win at Hampton Downs

by Ida Wood

Photo: Bruce Jenkins / TGR NZ

M2 Competition’s Sebastian Manson earned his first Formula Regional Oceania victory in the reversed-grid race at Hampton Downs.

Despite lining up some way short of his second place grid spot, Manson made a great start and was able to attack pole-starting team-mate Nikita Johnson on the outside at turn one. Behind them, Patrick Heuzenroeder took third from MTEC Motorsport team-mate Shawn Rashid.

Manson got alongside Johnson again on the straight down to turn two, where Johnson locked up and Manson was able to get by at turn three. There was a similar move behind, as M2’s Arvid Lindblad did a double move to get up to fourth place.

He was soon pressuring Heuzenroeder, but also had Giles Motorsport’s Will Brown attacking him quite aggressively in the braking zones. Rashid sat behind them, staying in sixth despite going off at the final corner.

There was already a gap of one second between the top two after the opening lap, and Manson doubled his advantage before it was trimmed late in the race and he ended up winning by 0.916 seconds.

Lindblad had a lock-up on lap two that did not prove costly, but it took until lap 11 of 18 for him to attempt a move on Heuzenroeder. He made a lunge at turn five but could not make it work, then on the next lap he tried the inside of turn one and failed once more.

On the run to turn two he stayed in Heuzenroeder’s towm, then dived out of it at the final moment and got ahead. However Heuzenroeder fought back past through the next two corners, so Lindblad had to try again later in the lap. Once clear of Heuzenroeder, he quickly pulled away from him but had no chance of catching the top two.

MTEC team-mates Zack Scoular and Josh Pierson got past Rashid on lap three, then Pierson overtook Scoular on lap four.

Michael Shin (M2) and Ales Crosbie (Giles) completed the top 10 on track, but Crosbie was later disqualified for a technical infringement along with Kiwi Motorsport’s James Lawley.

Race results (18 laps)
Pos Driver Team Time
1 Sebastian Manson M2 Competition 26m58.886s
2 Nikita Johnson M2 Competition +0.916s
3 Arvid Lindblad M2 Competition +2.283s
4 Patrick Heuzenroeder MTEC Motorsport +6.155s
5 Will Brown Giles Motorsport +6.935s
6 Josh Pierson MTEC Motorsport +7.889s
7 Zack Scoular MTEC Motorsport +8.829s
8 Shawn Rashid MTEC Motorsport +9.431s
9 Michael Shin M2 Competition +9.694s
10 Jett Bowling Kiwi Motorsport +15.635s
11 Matias Zagazeta M2 Competition +16.028s
12 Nicolas Stati Kiwi Motorsport +18.104s
13 Enzo Yeh M2 Competition +18.732s
14 Nicholas Monteiro MTEC Motorsport +19.021s
15 Barrett Wolfe Giles Motorsport +51.405s
DSQ Alex Crosbie Giles Motorsport
DSQ James Lawley Kiwi Motorsport
Fastest lap: Lindblad, 1m29.032s

Championship standings
1 Lindblad 129   2 Scoular 108   3 Brown 93   4 Johnson 92   5 Pierson 88   6 Zagazeta 82   7 Heuzenroeder 82   8 Manson 73   9 Shin 69   10 Rashid 49