Motorsport: Wheels come off GP3 charge

Mitch Evans was thwarted by tyre and engine troubles at Silverstone in England at the weekend. Photo / 2011 GP3 Media

Young New Zealand driver Mitch Evans has slipped to second in the GP3 championship after a fraught two races at Silverstone in England.

The Kiwi driver headed into the weekend on top of the points table after three rounds but the wheels came off last weekend.

Despite finishing 10th in race one, Evans held on to the series by his finger tips, just two points ahead of Alexander Sims.

The rain bucketed down seconds before the beginning of the final warm-up lap and 19 of the 30 drivers made a late decision to divert into the pits at the end of the formation lap to switch to wet tyres instead of taking their places on the starting grid.

At the start of the race, only 11 cars sat on the grid. The rest, including Evans, were in the pits and had to chase the pack from their pit road-race start. Evans lost more time queuing behind his teammate for the late tyre change.

However, his frustration began even earlier than the rain-drenched formation lap. The set of new wet tyres fitted for his initial out lap were found to be unusable. A balance weight on one of the rear wheels had been applied in the wrong place, causing severe vibration.

Race two on the weekend for Evans proved an even worse outing. An electronics failure after just half a lap ended any chance of him salvaging the weekend.

He had charged through the field, moving from 10th to fifth before everything died in the car.

"Today illustrated the highs and lows of motor racing in the space of half a lap," said Evans. "I made a great start to move up to fifth and could see that I was edging away from the cars behind, but the engine faltered as I went along the old pit straight and then died completely.

"I'm gutted, but the title race remains wide open so we'll move on and bounce back at the Nurburgring [next round, July 23-24]."

Evans had already passed Sims when his engine died suddenly, so it was even more disappointing to see the Englishman go on to finish third and take over the GP3 Series lead.

Sims now has a three-point lead over Evans at the halfway point of the eight-round GP3 season.

Evans' MW Arden teammate Lewis Williamson won the Sunday race, becoming the eighth different winner in the eight GP3 races this year.

V8 Supercars

Just when it looked liked Kiwi V8 Supercar driver Shane van Gisbergen's season might have settled down from its rollercoaster ride, the song remained the same.

Another fight through the field in both races saw the Stone Brothers Racing driver finish 11th and fifth in the two races in Townsville, Queensland. With his two battling charges through the pack, van Gisbergen hangs on to his third place in the championship behind Vodafone teammates Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes.

After claiming his second series win of the season in Darwin last month, van Gisbergen headed back up north with high hopes, only to struggle again to find a qualifying set-up that worked and end 22nd on the grid for the first race of the weekend on Saturday.

Sunday's second weekend qualifying session, where he qualified 11th, saw a major improvement but valuable time, not to mention track position, was lost during a safety car pit stop when the young Kiwi had to queue up behind teammate Alex Davison.

Despite the delay, van Gisbergen put his head down and made the best possible use of his only set of sticky tyres, picking off those in front of him until the flag came out and he was in fifth position, just one behind Davison.

"The first stint was nothing special. I was pretty much in cruise mode until I could get on to the soft tyre," said van Gisbergen.

"We had to queue up when the safety car was called, which hurt us a bit, but once we were on the softs the car really came into its own.

"I was able to make up some good ground but, in reality, I was too far back from the lead pack to do much more than I did."

Garth Tander took out Saturday's win from Whincup and Will Davidson, with Sunday's winner, Whincup, leading Lowndes home from Mark Winterbottom.

Whincup has now equalled Peter Brock's race-win record of 48 but Tander snatched his 49th race win and it moves him into third place on the list of most ATCC/V8 Supercar Championship wins.

Australian V8 Utes

New Zealand V8 Utes champion Chris Pither now leads the Australia Ute championship after winning round four of the series in Townsville.

Pither rocketed from 13th position on the grid to win when the top 18 positions were reversed, which put him on pole for the final race of the day.

"I'm pretty rapt after a disappointing result at Darwin. The team put in a big effort and bounced back as good as we could with the two race wins and a round win," said Pither.

"We've had a third, a second and a first for the season so far and I think we've made some steady improvement in the set-up with the Ice Break Ute, which is pretty exciting."

Series frontrunners Ryal Harris and David Sieders had a meeting to forget. Harris broke an axle and was forced to retire after coming together with Dean Canto and Nathan Pretty, and Sieders was forced into pit lane after his bonnet flew back, breaking his windscreen.

Pither now leads the series by just four points from Grant Johnson.