Liam Foster has taken the lead in the 2020-21 Hi-Q Components NZ Formula First Championship heading into the sixth round at Manfeild. Foster now holds a 24-point lead over Chris Symon, who lead the first four rounds of the championship.
The 2020-21 season started near perfect for Symon who won the first race of the season and quickly built a small points buffer after the opening round. Foster struck back at the following round though, taking two of the three races to claw back some of Symon’s lead.
In the final round before the Christmas break at Pukekohe Park Symon sent a clear message to Foster as he clean-swept the weekend taking pole position and all three race wins to build his points gap to over 75-points, more than an entire race wins worth.
But the game of tit-for-tat continued at the first round of 2021 where Foster shone as Symon struggled. Foster was quick out of the gate at Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park, taking pole and the opening race win while Symon struggled with grip, finishing in third and fourth in the opening two races. Foster would also go on to win the third and final race of the weekend with Symon finishing in a distant second-place. This slashed Symon’s points lead by over half heading to the New Zealand Grand Prix.
At the most recent stop on the NZ Formula First calendar, Foster took the mammoth opportunity thrown at him when Symon crashed out of qualifying. A car leaked oil at the pit-lane entry which Symon came unstuck on and crashed into the wall during qualifying which caused major damage to his front beam. Not only did Symon qualifying lowly, he was not able to repair the car 100% at the track, meaning he only finished in 10th in the opening race. This handed Foster the lead as he took the race win. Symon then finished fifth and third the remaining races while Foster took another win and a fourth-place.
Expect to see some exciting, dynamic and action-packed battles happening throughout the entire field over the three six-laps races. It’s standard for the 1200cc air-cooled VW power cars to go four-wide into turn one in an epic ‘last of the late brakers game”. The cars will then duke it out on the flowing infield section at Manfeild before forming a Formula First freight train down the two long straights to decide who will be victorious at the chequered flag.
Race 1 (1:30pm Saturday) and Race 3 (1:15pm Sunday) will be streamed LIVE on Spark Sport!