A challenging season end as Le Brocq secures 2nd in Championship
November 14, 2011
The final round of the 2011 Australian Formula Ford Championship has been a typical motorsport weekend for the three strong AMSF/CAMS Rising Star Crew with Le Brocq sealing his second place in the series championship, while he, Harrison and local young-gun Mitchell all faced the ups and downs of racing on the short Tasmanian circuit.
Going into the practice sessions, the Minda Motorsport team were confident that all three cars were well prepared and that the young drivers were ready to go out and make an impact. Le Brocq looked to continued his fine form topping the time sheets in Practice 1, Harrison went fifth, while Mitchell was right on the verge of the top ten, a strong start to his National campaign.
Practice 2 as the field went up another gear, the times dropped by more than six tenths at the head of the field. Harrison placed his #12 Penrite Mygale fourth, Le Brocq in fifth, and Mitchell settling his Go Markets Mygale to close out the top ten.
Saturday’s qualifying session saw the CAMS Rising Star teammates working hard as a team to end the year’s qualifying on a high. It was a second row lockout, with Le Brocq third and Harrison fourth. AMSF Rookie Rising Star and local Tasmanian boy Mitchell proved he could mix it with the National competitors as he looked to impress his home crowd with a good qualifying result, finishing the session in 11th for Race 1.
Trent Harrison, #12 Penrite Mygale “Jack and I are working together. The only way to make this track work is to get a tow, so we’ve continued the plan from practice, but it just didn’t work as well as we’d hoped but we’ll press on in the race.
“The car feels good and this track’s fun, it only has three real corners, but they’re probably three of the hardest corners we go to so it’s not that simple.
Jack Le Brocq, #49 Penrite Mygale “Trent and I worked together in practice and qualifying, looking to get both cars up the front.
“The cars feeling fine, now we just have to watch the flat spots, so we’ll try a few changes before the race and then it’s on.”
Callum Mitchell, #11 Go Markets Mygale “It says there’s eight corners on the map, but really there’s only three and they’re three of the hardest corners in Australia, so for me it’s more about building my confidence than anything else.
“The car felt pretty good, there’s not a lot more needed in the car, it’s about me. I’m only a little bit off so just finding some reference points to see where I can work a bit harder on my driving.”
Race 1 - Le Brocq and Harrison charged away from the line side by side, already battling for position as Mitchell took to his first home race with a slower start, dropping position off the line but would drive on to take it to the regular nationals.
A big Harrison lockup into turn four allowed Le Brocq and Davies to close in. The pressure subsided when Davies went off the track, Harrison and Le Brocq took the chance to stream away and hunt down the leaders.
On lap six, Le Brocq took to the inside to secure third from his fellow Minda Motorsport entry, but it didn’t last long and Harrison fired back under his teammate to retake third. Young teammate Mitchell was putting in consistent times in his #11 Go Markets Mygale entry had made the move on Venter for ninth and was closing on Williamson ahead.
Starting the final lap, Le Brocq had kept the battle alive to once again move into third, while Harrison had succumbed to Erickson, the fastest man on track. With the lead pair now well ahead, Le Brocq would bring it home in third, Harrison fifth, and Mitchell held in ninth to take his first national top ten result.
Race 2 saw another conservative start for Mitchell who dropped a couple of spots.
At the start of lap four, Le Brocq looked under Waters, and it was the top three nose to tail, A lockup for Le Brocq through turn five, brought Erickson and Harrison right onto the line of challengers at the front. Harrison was all over Erickson, but had Hart filling his mirrors on lap 7. A big lockup for Harrison through the final turn opened the door, Hart and Davies making the most of the opportunity, while ahead Le Brocq also locked up, seeing a drop to fourth with five laps to go.
Wheel to wheel to the line as battles raged across the field, Le Brocq crossed the line in fourth, Harrison bringing his Penrite Mygale home seventh, with Mitchell closing out race two in 12th after a late spin dropped him out of a top ten challenge.
The final race of the 2011 Australian Formula Ford Championship would see Harrison start three positions back to 10th after copping a 16 second penalty from a Race 2 incident but he was fully focused on gaining those spots back..
After gaining enough points in the first two races to cement a brilliant 2nd in the 2011 Championship, Le Brocq’s season would come to an end on lap 2 as he dropped through the field after the drive shaft and gearbox gave in too soon, his year to end in pit lane.
Harrison and Mitchell seemed settled in eighth and tenth and as they came to complete lap five, Harrison was edging closer to seventh, Mitchell finding himself racing room and closing the gap to Venter. Lap seven and it was Mitchell backing off the gas as the driveshaft bolts sheered, leaving a second Minda Motorsport entry back in pit lane, and another end coming too soon.
Harrison then put in one of the fastest times of the session to close the gap on Sager, before making the move to secure seventh. With four to go, Harrison now ran sixth and tried an unsuccessful pass for fifth. The final race of 2011 saw Harrison greet the flag in sixth to end the season fifth in the championship standings. Jack Le Brocq, #49 Penrite Mygale
“It’s an awesome feeling. Second is what we wanted to come and do this weekend so we wrapped that up and are really ecstatic. The team have done an awesome job this year given the little time and testing so a big hats off to them.
“We had some good pace during the races, are still struggling a bit with car setup so we’ve continued to work on that, had some misfortune and ended on a DNF which isn’t what you want, but we came here not knowing what to expect for the season finale and the boys have done a great job to get where the car is this weekend..
“I’m now really looking forward to the FIA Academy, an experience that being with the Australian Motor Sport Foundation and Minda Motorsport has definitely helped me earn. Obviously I don’t know where we’re going to end up but that’s what it’s all about, learning and taking on the opportunity to see where racing might lead – anything is possible.”
Trent Harrison, #12 Penrite Mygale
“I didn’t finish where I’d like to but I fought my way back through. I’m confident I could’ve been right up there but really we had good speed and it’s all about keeping on.
“The team has done an amazing job, they worked so hard to get the car where it is, and given that we’ve done minimal testing before the season, Rick our engineer has been incredible and we couldn’t have got results without him.
“It’s a bit disappointing where I’ve ended up, I feel I certainly could have been right up there this year. I always make sure that when something happens I put my head down and get back up, so I did that a few times and now need to keep the ball rolling and make next year bigger and better.”
Callum Mitchell, #11 Go Markets Mygale
“Yesterday was really positive, especially finishing in ninth but today’s been one of those days where everything that could go wrong has. The most disappointing thing being at home is there’s a lot of people to thank for all they’ve done so you want to do well for them and put on a bit of a show but this is just the way racing is.
“I’m feeling pretty confident for the final Vic State Circuit Racing event with all the things I’ve learnt from my last two rounds in the national series we’ll put it into practice and finish on a high note.”
Bruin Beasley, Minda Motorsport Team Manager
“This weekend was ok. It’s not ideally where we wanted to be but it was pretty close.
“Overall for the year it’s been quite impressive. Jack has really stepped up and in our first year with the Mygale chassis I think we’ve done an exceptional job to be second and fifth in the championship against the more experienced teams.
“Even with Symmons being a challenge and not our best results, we’ve had a lap record, race and round wins, and four from six podiums this year so on a whole for development with team, cars and drivers, it has been really good.”
Round 8, Symmons Plains results
1st Foster 57
2nd Erickson 40
3rd Waters 36
6th Le Brocq 26
7th Harrison 19
12th Mitchell 2
2011 Australian Formula Ford Championship final results
1st Waters 331
2nd Le Brocq 257
3rd Foster 251
4th Williamson 201
5th Harrison 156
The CAMS Rising Star and AMSF Rising Star Programs are proudly supported by CAMS, The Australian Sports Commission, Minda Motorsport, Penrite, Go Markets, OAMPS, Relux Slabs, Revolution Racegear and Mark Webber.