SUPER3 HEADS TO ‘SUPER WEEKEND’ AT QUEENSLAND RACEWAY

Super3 heads to “Super Weekend” at Queensland Raceway – Photo: InSyde Media

THE MOST competitive Kumho Tyre Super3 series grid on record heads to the half-way point of the 2019 championship this weekend at Queensland Raceway as wide open as it has ever been.

The Century Batteries Ipswich Super Sprint also marks the first time that all three tiers of Supercars competition will have officially featured on the same program.

While the Kumho series supported the Super 2 series and Supercars Championship at Phillip Island in 2017, that was prior to the championship adopting the Super3 series branding.

As a result, the 20-strong Super3 grid will combine with Super2 and the main game to offer Queenslanders more than 60 Supercars on show across three grids and seven races this weekend.

The opening two rounds of the Kumho Series have each featured different round winners: MW Motorsport Falcon driver Zak Best winning the Phillip Island season opener while Anderson Motorsport’s Jayden Ojeda survived the Winton drama to take round two.

Jayden Ojeda won the last round at Winton – Photo: InSyde Media

Four different drivers have won races, two different drivers have been on pole and just 29 points cover the top four in the championship ahead of the three races this weekend in Ipswich.

Consistency has MW Motorsport’s Hamish Ribarits on top of the standings, with the Formula Ford graduate having finished second in both rounds contested to date to claim a narrow, nine-point championship lead.

After qualifying on pole at Winton, Ribarits was forced to work his way through the field across the weekend after a post-race time penalty dropped him to eighth in race one.

He stormed through to second in race two, and was leading the finale’ only to lose out at the very end after a tight battle with Jayden Ojeda, who had fresher rubber.

Home track advantage for Broc Feeney – Photo: InSyde Media

Queensland teenager Broc Feeney sits second and, as the only Queenslander in the outright field this weekend, will claim exclusive rights to having a home track advantage at Queensland Raceway.

Feeney scored pole on debut at Phillip Island and won his first race in Super3 competition before going on to record top three finishes in three of the next five races.

2018 runner-up Zak Best has arguably been the form driver of the championship and is the only driver to have won multiple races so far this year.

The Benalla-based teenager was on course to dominate his home round of the championship last time out and had converted second on the grid to wins in the first two races at Winton. He was leading the third and final race of the weekend only for suffer a driveline failure at half-race distance – denying him the chance to compete for a round win.

Round two winner Jayden Ojeda sits fourth in the championship, fresh from his remarkable win at Winton last time out.

The first of the true privateer runners on the grid – his Anderson Motorsport team has no main-game or Super 2 series affiliation – Ojeda preserved through wild racing at Winton to grab the lead within sight of the flag in the final race
which, coupled with Best’s failure to finish, delivered the Formula 4 series graduate the overall win.

The 2019 series has been dominated by Ford Falcon drivers, with cars representing the Blue Oval sitting first through fifth in the standings.

The first Commodore driver is Brad Jones Racing rookie Josh Fife; who sits seventh outright.

The Kumho Cup battle, for Pro-Am drivers, is headed by former series champion Chris Smerdon.

The Matt Stone Racing-prepared Falcon holds a narrow, 28-point lead over Brad Neill’s similar ex-Stone Brothers Falcon, while Commodore pilot and reigning class champion Jim Pollicina sits third, nine points further back.

The 20-car field includes the return of local driver Shane Hunt – in his ex-Triple Eight Racing BF Falcon – and fellow Queenslander Jonathan Beikoff, who will make his first Kumho Series start driving an AU Falcon.

The 2002-built car will be the oldest on the grid with nearly 18 years of Supercars evolution between that and the current models racing in the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship.

Brad Jones Racing and Matt Stone Racing will field cars in all three tiers of Supercars competition this weekend, while several teams feature competitors in both Super2 and Super3.

The Kumho Tyre Super 3 series will contest three races this weekend; two, 13-lap sprint races and a 17-lap feature following Race 20 of the Supercars Championship on Sunday afternoon.

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