Bamber is the New Suzuki Swift Sport Cup Champion

Promising William Bamber is the New Suzuki Swift Sport Cup Champion

Promising young Wanganui driver William Bamber fulfilled his summer’s dream by winning the Suzuki Swift Sport Cup motor racing championship at Taupo yesterday.

The 16-year-old Wanganui Collegiate student turned on another polished performance in the final round of the national series, scoring two victories and a second placing in the three Taupo races.

“These last three races, along with the Ruapuna event where I won three wins in a row on my birthday were the season highlights,” said Bamber.

He had always been a strong favourite after finishing runner-up in his debut 2008/2009 season in the one-make Suzuki Swift class.

“The last two years have been great,” said Bamber. “This is such a fun class and a great learning curve after jumping out of karts.”

He commended the level of professionalism in the Swift Sport Championship and the support of Suzuki New Zealand Ltd.

Bamber scored a total of 1,128 points for the season to finish 170 points ahead of 20-year-old Aucklander Ben Dallas. Scott Harrison (Whangarei) was third overall with Castrol Swift Scholarship winner Matt Gibson fourth. Gibson said he was keen to return to the Swift Cup next season and make a real bid to win the series.

The evenly matched Swifts produced their usual close racing, with hotly disputed battles throughout the field.

Qualifying hinted at the fast and furious pace to come, with a mere three tenths of a second separating the top three contenders, and 1.3 seconds covering the fastest ten Swifts.

Harrison clocked the best time of 1 minute 49.765 seconds, with chief protagonists Dallas and Bamber hard on his heels, turning in laps of 1 minute 49.835 seconds and 1 minute 49.858 seconds respectively. The next best practice times went to Alan Dunkley, Gibson and Craig Innes.

Harrison made a cracking start in the first race, but had Dallas right on his hammer from the fall of the starter’s flag, with Bamber a handy third, followed by Dunkley and Gibson.

The leading trio were locked in battle for the first two laps before a dramatic change soon after the start of the third lap. Dallas made a brave attempt at taking Harrison on entry to the corner at the end of pit straight, but in the challenge the wily Bamber slipped through into the lead, taking the other two drivers by surprise.

This change relegated Harrison from first to third, and Dallas continued to harry Bamber in a tussle which was to persist until the end of the 8 lap race.

Local Taupo entrant Craig Innes was running sixth when he spun off the circuit on the fourth lap, an incident which relegated him to the tail of the field.

The action remained intense up front where the top six cars ran close together in typical Swift Sport Cup style. After seven laps the order was Bamber, Dallas, Harrison, Dunkley, Gibson and Marc Spring, but the results were still up for grabs.

Gibson overtook Dunkley, but the Auckland driver made a desperate bid to retake fourth place, tapping the rear of Matt’s car in the process.

A disappointed Gibson was relegated to twelfth position with this off-track excursion, and while Dunkley crossed the finish line fourth, he was penalised 50 seconds for the incident which dropped him out of contention.

At least Dunkley had the consolation of set the fastest race lap time of 1m 50.588 seconds, an average speed of 113.936 seconds for the twisting circuit.

Bamber’s polished driving paid off; with a fine race one victory over Dallas, but the margin was just seven tenths of a second. Harrison took third, with Bramwell King, Spring and young Thames schoolboy AJ Lauder locked together for fourth, fifth and sixth placings.

Starting from pole position in race two, Harrison leapt into the lead from Bamber, Dallas and Gibson, but Bamber challenged right from the fall of the flag, and slipped through into a lead he would never lose soon after the commencement of the second lap.

William set a class record of 1 minute 49.949 seconds on the fourth lap, an average of 114.599 km/h for the testing 3.5 kilometre track.

By this time he was just under one second in front of a close battle between Harrison, Dallas, Gibson, Spring and Lauder. On lap 7 Dallas forced his way past Harrison at the chicane, and went on to finish second followed closely by Harrison, Gibson, Spring and Lauder.

Going into the final race, with its reserve grid format, just 45 points separated Bamber and Dallas, Mike Turley took an early lead from Bramwell King while Gibson made good of the early stages and was in third position, with Bamber seventh.

The leading Swifts were tightly bunched, and Gibson squeezed through into the lead on lap 3, followed by Turley, King, Bamber and Lawrence.

Dallas was back in tenth place and struggling to make it through the traffic, but by the end of the ten laps had eased through to finish seventh.

Bamber improved to third on lap 7, and second on the following lap, with King and Turley still in close attendance.

Gibson kept his cool and eased to a 6.5 second victory over Bamber, with third placed King just ahead of Turley and Sam Robinson. It was a tight finish to what had been a great third season for the Swift Sport Cup series.

ENDS

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