Cambridge driver Nick Ross has come away from round two of the BNT V8s at Taupo third overall.
Qualifying fourth, across the weekend’s three races Ross took his Total Lubricants Nissan Altima to fourth place in race one, a second place in race two, and third in the final encounter of the weekend.
The results helping him maintain third place in the championship behind Jason Bargwanna and Andre Heimgartner.
“Up and down weekend overall, but happy. Really pleased with the reliability of the car at the moment, which is positive for the rest of the season,” said Ross.
“The car in race two was really good, we grabbed second spot on the podium which was great – valuable points for the championship.”
“In the reverse grid race three, we got a third placing which came after a great battle with Lance Hughes and Jack Smith. We needed to finish ahead of Jack to clinch third for the weekend.”
“It was a tough race and a tough battle with those two. The car seemed to be running a little bit rough. Might have been a fuel pressure issue, it just seemed to be down on power a little bit, but we held on to get that all important third place which was great. We’ll investigate the issue before the next round and see what the cause was.”
Ross said that varying track conditions made it a challenge to fine tune the set up of the car.
“Taupo is a circuit that you really need to get on top of the car set-up early on, otherwise you’re chasing it for the rest of the weekend. We had good pace for most of the weekend, just needed that little bit of extra which was hard to find due to the changeable track.”
“We found a nice performance window for the car on Sunday morning, but the track got a lot hotter in the afternoon and we couldn’t quite find what we needed in the car to make it perform its best.”
“I think it’s something most teams struggled with over the weekend.”
“But all in all a good weekend, we came into the round third in points and we’re still third in points.”
“Looking forward to getting down to the South Island in January for the the next two rounds.”
The next round of the BNT V8s is at Ruapuna near Christchurch, January 13-14 before heading to Teretonga the following weekend.
Nick Ross, the TOTAL Lubricants Nissan Altima and Concept Motorsport is supported this season by TOTAL Lubricants, Jim Wright Nissan, RYCO 24•7, C&R Developments, Team Wino, Auto Trail Ltd, 82C, NZ Safety Gear and Tyre Traders.