Lindblad racing towards clean sweep

Dunedin driver Brian Scott guides his Porsche 991.2 Cup to victory in a Pirelli Porsche NZ...
Dunedin driver Brian Scott guides his Porsche 991.2 Cup to victory in a Pirelli Porsche NZ Championship race during the NextGen Championship meeting at Teretonga Park, Invercargill, on Saturday. PHOTO: DAVE LOUDON
Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship leader Arvid Lindblad has one hand on the 2025 title after a sensational win in the Spirit of a Nation Cup feature race at Teretonga Park yesterday.

Briton Lindblad took his fourth straight feature win in the New Zealand championship, and only this weekend’s 69th New Zealand Grand Prix, in Cromwell, stands between him and an unprecedented clean sweep of the country’s five top single-seater races.

"I really wanted to win today," he said after receiving the race trophy from Kiwi Chris Pither, the trophy’s first winner 20 years ago.

"The weekend has been decent, but not to the standard of the previous weekends and I really wanted to win this race.

"The start was always going to be crucial and I made a decent one but not a mega one.

"I knew I had to send it and make it stick. A lot depended on Matias [Zagazeta], but he gave me the room."

Zagazeta, his M2 Competition team-mate on pole position and on the inside, could do nothing to counter Lindblad’s commitment at the start.

Lindblad, a Red Bull junior driver, before the start said he intended to "send it" and send it he did.

He surged around the outside with a breath-taking pass to take the lead.

Lindblad had tried the move in earlier races, but this one was the most impressive.

American driver Jett Bowling, for Kiwi Motorsports, ended up in the wall at turn one, giving his mechanics another big repair job, having only just finished the car after its race-two off earlier in the day.

The incident stopped the race after two laps behind the safety car.

After a short break to recover Bowling’s stricken car, the field headed off for another attempt, and this time the racing got under way on the fifth lap without drama.

Lindblad went very early and it was the right call, as he stole a few car lengths from Zagazeta as they crossed the line to get the action under way again.

At the front, Lindblad was absolutely flying, several tenths per lap faster than nearest challenger Zagazeta, and already 1.2sec ahead after three laps.

Michael Shin was going well in third, holding off Patrick Heuzenroeder, while a little further back, Nikita Johnson and Josh Pierson were engaged in their private battle for fifth and sixth.

South Korea’s Shin made a great pass on Zagazeta on lap 12 as the Peruvian also started to fall into the clutches of the battle between Patrick Heuzenroeder, Johnson and Pierson.

It was all good news for Lindblad, who hit the halfway mark 4sec ahead and still the fastest car on the track.

As Lindblad disappeared up the road and Shin sat in a lonely second, attention turned to the a battle for third, which remained tight but unchanged for the remaining laps of the race.

Zagazeta stabilised in second, building a 1sec advantage over Heuzenroeder and giving M2 Competition another impressive 1-2-3 result. — APL