MAWER AGAIN
Oran Park, July 12, 2003

The second qualifying session at 2.50pm was a confusing affair. The session was red flagged about fifteen minutes in, when Chris Coombs went off on the outside of turn one. But more than half the field came into the scrutineering bay instead of pit lane, directed to scrutineering by a marshall who mistakenly thought the session was over, when in fact there was still five minutes to go!

The session took place in fine, sunny conditions, and Barton Mawer took up where he left off in first qualifying. He completed a total of just seven laps – including two flying laps – the second of which saw him post a time of 1:03.9132 which remained unbeaten.

Michael Caruso, Christian Jones, and James Cressey tried hard, but were all in the 1:04’s. Kenny Habul had another good qualifying session, until he went off on his last lap, and had to be removed from the sand at turn one by a tow vehicle after the chequered flag came out.

In the Yokohama Trophy class, Chris Coombs made it out onto the track after missing the first qualifying session with mechanical dramas. But it was Scud Racing’s Chris Gilmour who again took pole for the 1996 and earlier cars, with David Borg and Coombs in second and third. Bill Maddocks car suffered clutch failure in the first session and he took no part in the second session. He will start of the back of the grid in race two tomorrow.

Craig Rundle was the best of the BRM drivers, finishing sixth quickest ahead of Hong Kong driver Marchy Lee in seventh in the very creditable time of 1:05.3269. Peter Hackett, who has struggled with rear brake problems in both qualifying sessions, was eighth, as he was in the first session. Karl Reindler recorded the ninth fastest time and will have his work cut out for him in Race 2 races on Sunday.

Press Release, Australian F3-Association

RESULT