McLeod takes impressive debut Sports Sedan win

By Timothy Neal

Date posted: October 28, 2023

Cameron Mcleod stormed the Precision National Sports Sedans field in the new MARC GT Mustang to take a maiden win on the streets of Surfers Paradise in his category debut.

The young Super3 regular was controlled as always to take the win over Caruso, as the championship race opened up for the Audi driver with Tony Ricciardello experiencing mechanical issues to drop back through the field.

Ashely Jarvis – mr consistent in the Holden Monaro – finished third to maintain his title hopes, but Race 1 belonged to the versatile McLeod, who’s ability to race anything and anywhere was once again on display.

It was also a great showing for the category as the race was a largely green-run affair with only a brief yellow, and the field is starting to look like a very natural fit for a regular Supercars support act after their impressive show at the Bathurst 1000.

Caruso led early but couldn’t hold off the impressive MARC GT SS machine and McLeod on their category debut. Image/main image: John Morris

Here’s how the race unfolded…

Caruso swept across to maintain the lead off McLeod into Turn 1, whilst Ricciardello wasted no time in moving into third over Jarvis and set about being aggressive on the MARC GT.

It was very quickly a breakaway front three, but Caruso looked to have the legs to pull away from Mcleod, with the Championship leading Alfa holding a four second cushion over Jarvis in P4..

McLeod pulled back Caruso after the Audi A4 struggled over the chicanes to then take the lead on the beach side of the track, with the MARC team clearly having sorted out a reported brake issue from yesterday’s qualifying.

In a blow to his championship hopes, Riciardello then slowed to bring about serious title implications, which put Jarvis and his Monaro into third over Humfrey’s XE Falcon and Jake Camilleri.

Riciardello saw his 59 point championshiplead whittled down after slowing to drop through the fiel. Image: John Morris

Ricciardello had dropped back to P10 with eight minutes of race time remaining, whilst the #46 continued a bad weekend with the BMW 318i of Compton spinning out before stalling on track.

The brief yellow ended with Caruso holding onto the MARC Mustang, and quickly put space on Jarvis.

McLeod looked on track for a maiden Sports Sedans win however, as the gap grew to over one second, with Ricciardello fell to P14 with his 59 point championship lead now cut in half by the second placed Caruso.

With two minutes remaining the podium was looking settled, with Caruso eight seconds over Jarvis, and the Monaro holding a one second lead over Humfrey.

Lapped traffic came at the wrong time for Mcleod, which allowed Caruso to shut the gap, but the brand new MARC GT SS was too good a machine in its easy flowing nature through the chicanes for the superior horsepower of the Gourlay built Audi.

The Super3 youngster pulled away in the end for 2.7S win, whilst Caruso would be happy to have made a dent in Ricciardello’s championship lead, with the Alfa finishing in P15, whilst Jarvis secured third to keep hold of Caruso in the championship battle.