Targett achieved 

Grove Racing junior Oscar Targett announced himself by securing the Porsche Sprint Challenge title at Sydney Motorsport Park on the weekend.

Targett entered the weekend with a 91-point advantage, but with 181 up for grabs, he still had his work cut out to stop Brock Gilchrist at bay.

In the end not only did the Grove Racing youngster take out the overall title in style with two wins in mixed conditions, but he also snatched the Jim Richards Endurance Trophy from Gilchrist.

He did it in style by winning the round narrowly from Clay Osborne, thanks to pole and victories in the first two races before ending the weekend in third.

After winning the round Targett ended up champion by a resounding 157 points after an impressive campaign that netted 11 wins and 16 podiums from 18 starts.

Despite the success, the 18-year-old still admitted it was a “relief” to get the job done.

“Going into Sydney it was not a sure thing it was going to happen,” Targett told AUTO ACTION.

“We had a nice lead, but for the amount of wins and podiums we had it was not that big of a gap.

“I had a really good test day at Sydney prior to the race and was quite confident the car was going to be pretty good and fast enough.

“I also knew I had a good team around me and if I did what I had done for the rest of the season I would be okay.

“It was a relief to get it done and I am very happy it is now over and a tick in the book.”

With tricky conditions predicted and eventuating in the Friday night opener, Targett said there was a major emphasis on qualifying, but the challenge was doing so without the diminishing the race car’s set-up.

Given the teenager noted a major improvement in 2024 has been the work behind the scenes with his Grove Racing engineering team, he was able to pull it off.

“We had a big dip in qualifying because I knew the first race was going to be interesting with weather and the grid position would be very important,” Targett recalled.

“It is always difficult to pass in a wet race, but a wet one at night is even more difficult and it turned out being a wet race, at night on slicks which was the worst outcome of the lot.

“Race 2 was also very important because we were not actually leading the Endurance Trophy.

“Usually you focus on either the qualifying or race car, but we really had to do both to be near the front for the wet sprint, but also across the 45 minute enduro race.

“We managed to do both which was great.

“My biggest improvement was being able to work really closely with the engineering team to make the car better.

“We worked really hard at the start of the year and towards the end of last year to make the car as good as possible and it paid off.”

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