Young Gun Helps M2 Take Giant Strides

Young Gun Helps M2 Take Giant Strides

M2 motorsport made giant strides with its V8 SuperTourer at the Woodstock 500 at Pukekohe over the weekend, with young Aussie signing Cameron Waters helping number one driver Simon McLennan and the team take its best grid position so far in the series and its first top ten finish.

The team were the surprise package of qualifying. Waters had never driven at Pukekohe before and it was the first time Wellington-based M2 Motorsport had run their new SuperTourer there, but he managed to get the car into fifth place in the first qualifying session to secure a place in the Top Ten shootout where M2 took sixth place for a row three starting position.
They finished both Race 1 and Race 2 and were in the thick of the action throughout Race 3, finishing tenth to round their weekend off on a high note.

2011 Australian Formula Ford Champion Waters used his V8 Supercar experience to good effect and gave the team valuable input on how he thought they could get the most out of their V8 SuperTourer on the daunting Pukekohe track. The team had smoothed out its own edges after a busy debut weekend at Taupo in the previous round and had also completed a positive test in the car. McLennan too revelled in the set up direction the team took and the result was a major step forward in performance.

"I'm still relatively new to driving Supercars but I've done a bit more in them compared to Simon," explained Waters. "The cars are pretty limited as to what you can do to the set up so it comes down to the driving side of things. I gave my input in how I thought we should drive the car and we did a few minor chassis changes through the weekend which were focussed on helping both myself and Simon.”
The set up direction certainly helped, as the car was consistently ain the top ten on lap times throughout the weekend. Translating the pace of the car into hard results was a little more challenging in the most competitive field at Pukekohe for years, however.

"The results of the first race and the second race didn't really reflect our true pace," said Simon. "The progress we made in qualifying looked set to reap rewards for us in Sunday's Race 2, and we were looking odds-on for a good result until we were turned round by another car while Cam was well inside the top ten. We all felt we deserved that tenth in the final race so that was a really positive way to finish the weekend. The car had performed faultlessly apart from a grassy excursion in the first race which filled up the front splitter and caused the engine to go into safe mode. Other than that we were able to focus on tyre management and how to get them to last over the long run."

It was the biggest meeting McLennan had ever competed in and the significance of the venue and the meeting were not lost on the young ace."The level of competition was just intense and the atmosphere was awesome. The entire weekend was something else in terms of what I have experienced here in New Zealand. I can remember Murph climbing the fence in V8SC years ago. It was a great feeling to be there racing guys like Greg at a place with such huge motor racing history. It was fitting that he topped it off with a win, an amazing effort."

"We are learning as we go and we took some valuable lessons away on how important quick driver changes are and how important the set-up of the car is over long distances. We're aiming to come back at Ruapuna faster and even stronger in the races. We have the pace, we just need to get the car to last the distance so that we can turn our speed at the pointy end into a good result at the chequered flag. No question though, the team is buzzing and we can't wait to get to Ruapuna."

M2 Motorsport is supported by Teng Tools, Mothers, OLS, Melbar Engineering, Sign Foundry, Metro on Willis, Speedmagnet, Icetech and Precision Panel & Paint.

ENDS

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