GOLDING WINS ACCIDENT-SHORTENED S5000 DEBUT AT BATHURST

JAMES Golding won an action-packed maiden race for S5000 at Mount Panorama during the Repco Bathurst 1000.

Golding fought off teammates Nathan Herne and Aaron Cameron to post a 1-2-3 finish for Garry Rogers Motorsport.

The race ended two laps early under Safety Car after Luis Leeds crashed into the tyre barrier at Griffin’s Bend while battling Jordan Boys for sixth place.

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Leeds clambered out of his car under his own steam, but the time required to remove his car – partly buried under the tyres – caused the race to go time-certain.

Former F1 racer Roberto Merhi and Joey Mawson finished fourth and fifth ahead of Boys, while Blake Purdie and Yoshiaki Katayama rounded out the finishers.

The latter took part in the race after missing both practice sessions and qualifying after serving mandatory 72 hours of quarantine.

The Japanese driver was given 10 minutes of track time prior to Thursday morning’s Touring Car Masters race before race officials signed him off to participate.

The field was depleted by two cars on the run to the first corner when Tim Macrow tangled with John Martin, putting the latter out on the spot with broken suspension while Macrow limped back to the pits with a broken front wing.

Ahead of them, Golding beat polesitter Cameron off the start and fended him off on the opening tours before Herne snatched second place around the outside of the Chase.

The leading trio were zeroing in on the outright Mount Panorama lap record prior to the Safety Car.

Golding set the fastest lap of the race on the last tour under green conditions with a 1m59.8375s, just over half a second shy of Christopher Mies’ outright record and fractionally faster than Cameron’s pole-winning time.

The fast times were achieved despite the S5000 cars being stripped of 90 horsepower for their Mount Panorama debut.

The results mean Cameron extends his lead in the Tasman Series standings to 26 points over Merhi with Golding now in third place, a further nine points adrift, while Macrow slips to fourth place, 49 points off the lead with three races remaining over the Bathurst 1000 weekend.

The S5000s will next hit the track on Friday morning for Race 2 at 10:05am AEDT.

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