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McNeill snares AU4 opener

AU4 Round 1 2025

By Thomas Miles

Date posted: 27 May 2025

The 2025 AU4 Championship started at The Bend last weekend and it was worth the wait with a fierce fight for glory.

There were three winners from as many races with Isaac McNeill edging out Harrison Duske and Imogen Radburn, who were separated by just seven points across a hard-fought weekend at the SA Sporting Car Club event.

The reborn class, comprised of an 18 car field that saw the debut of the new Tatuus-Abarth F4 race cars, competing alongside the first-generation F4 Mygale-Ford cars.

The weekend began with two competitive qualifying sessions on Saturday morning, where the Gen 2 Tatuus F4-T421 of Duske (Tim Macrow Racing) pipped Noah Killion (AGI Sport) for pole position in Race 1 with an impressive fastest lap of 1:50:7734.

Quali 2 for pole position in Race 3 saw Killion hit back with fastest and first, followed by Radburn and McNeill.

Duske started with plenty of speed, driving to a convincing 5s triumph in the opening race.

The battle for second was much tighter with Radburn holding off McNeill.

Noah Killion then had his moment in Race 2, controlling that 13-lap encounter.

He overcame McNeill by 2s, while the fifth for third was a tight arm wrestle.

Just 1.4s covered positions three to five with Radburn winning the battle, forcing Duke to fourth.

Suddenly it was an open field for the opening round win in the final race and McNeill seized his moment.

After AGI Sport’s Killion led the opening laps, he fell down the order on Lap 4 and McNeill was not going to let the opportunity slip.

He controlled the remainder to take the race and round by 6s over Radburn and Duske.

“We got the set-up nailed in the last race and it was a great result,” said McNeill.

“I got some good starts in the races. My launches were pretty good, and I made some good passes.

“The racing was really good over the weekend too. It was very close all weekend, and hopefully this is a good start to a great season.”

The younger Gen1 field was more one way with Jenson Marold having a perfect performance, ebb unbeaten and leading an AGI Sport one-two with Koby Wilson.

The next round of the Motorsport Australia AU4 Championship returns to The Bend’s shorter ‘West Circuit’ on July 12-13.

Image: JCR Media

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