Thomas Boniface has broken Chris Symon’s perfect run in the 2018/19 Hi-Q Components NZ Formula First Championship after taking race five of the championship at Pukekohe.
Following Saturday’s massive incident in race four, it was confirmed that fortunately, Taylor Hurst suffered only minor injuries, a true testament to the safety of the cars at such high speeds. Billy Frazer’s crew also completed a massive repair job to make sure his car was not only straight but still fast for Sunday’s racing.
Symon got the early lead with McConkey following him through turn one, but as always in Formula First, Symon’s lead was short lived as eight intense laps of racing, drafting and passing commenced down the long back straight.
Symon looked like he would continue his perfect run again until he and Frazer made contact at turn one, allowing McConkey to stretch away and briefly brake the draft. The pair then came together again on the final lap which resulted in Frazer having high-speed spin down the back straight.
This hampered Symon’s chances of victory and left Boniface and McConkey play for the win up the home straight. Boniface would take the lead by just 0.016s ahead of McConkey and Symon. Reece Hendl-Cox came home fourth with Amy Smith scoring another solid top five with fifth.
Ron Carter was on the tail end of the pack ahead of him in sixth with Frazer seventh. Ronan Murphy just edged Barry Holden and Kyan Davie to the line for eighth by just 0.042s and 0.1s respectively.
Bob Dillow, Louis Redshaw, Nathan Sudiono, Dave Scammell, Liam Nicholson, Andrew Tierney, Liam Foster and Rob Baker rounded out the field. Liam Foster suffered a steering failure which left him nursing the car home for points.