Despite the ominous forecast, the rain never arrived to spoil the last day of competition at the 2017 Yokohama World Time Attack Challenge.
The threat of downpours turned out to be nothing more than a bit of drizzle that quickly stopped, and the lower temperatures and overcast sky ended up creating even more favorable conditions for breaking records.
And that’s precisely what Tim Slade did in the MCA Suspension ‘Hammerhead’ Nissan Silvia S13, clocking a new record time of 1:20.971.
Piloting the PR Tech Racing Porsche 968, Barton Mawer managed to better his PB from Friday by three tenths, a 1:21.485 lap landing him in second position.
And finishing in third spot was Under Suzuki, who is no stranger to the WTAC podium. He was beyond ecstatic at the result too; 1:21.796 is not only the Scorch Racing Nissan Silvia S15’s best-ever time around Sydney Motorsport Park, but it’s right on the pace.
It’s crazy to see how all these cars keep improving and shaving off massive chunks of time over the previous year, and testament to the work and development that teams put into refining their machines. But the really crazy thing is that there is still more left in them all. As Tim Slade explained, the MCA Hammerhead was not even running the final version of the aero that Andrew Brilliant designed for the car this year. And PR Tech Racing, who skipped the final shoot-out due to mechanical issues in their 968, still have an all-billet engine (block and head) to run; they simply never had time to fit it and set it all up for the event.
And we all know that Under Suzuki never gives up; his determination guarantees that he will continue to push until the day he can come away victorious. The challenge is not over for him yet.
Once again, we came away hungry to see more. It’s like a vicious circle; we are all well and truly addicted to attacking time.
Team Speedhunters picked up a lot of content over the past few days at Sydney Motorsport Park, and we’ll begin rolling that out over the course of the next week. Stay tuned for more WTAC 2017 awesomeness!
Dino Dalle Carbonare
Instagram: speedhunters_dino
dino@speedhunters.com
Additional Images: Matthew Everingham