Stanaway among fastest

Shane van Gisbergen was in good form in Darwin. Picture / Getty Images

Kiwi adds valuable series points, writes Eric Thompson

On balance it was a good weekend for the international contingent of Kiwi drivers. Nobody quite made it to top spot on the podium, but a few made the top three and gained valuable championship points.

Impressive return Young Kiwi Richie Stanaway is relishing his return to single-seater racing after two years away and was again on the podium in the latest GP3 round in Austria.

Stanaway was among the fastest on the day and picked up a fourth in his opening race and backed that up with fighting third in race two to remain third in the series.

His team struggled a little with the car over the weekend but Stanaway isn't too concerned as it's a long season and they managed to pick up enough points to sit third in the championship. He is, however, a little concerned about his lack of race pace.

"It's a long championship and as you see with GP3, the guy who wins the series is not always dominant from the first race. So I'm not really stressed. I'm sure we will figure it out and our time will come.

"I think we are scoring pretty good points taking all this into consideration so when we get better hopefully we'll capitalise through the last two-thirds of the series." Evans builds on MonacoGP2 driver Mitch Evans is building momentum in his second season in the category finishing a solid seventh and fourth in Austria at the weekend. Evans snatched his first podium of the season in Monaco to kick-start his championship and gained valuable series points in both races.

Starting from the front row in race two (reverse top eight finishers from race one) Evans was pounced on by Johnny Cecotto and Raffaele Marciello to sit fourth.

Maintaining good pace and conserving tyre wear allowed Evans to close on to the back of Italian Marciello, who had burned up his tyres.

However, Marciello held off the hard-charging New Zealander to retain third and after a bumpy start to the season Evans is now inside the top 10 in eighth just 13 points away from fifth in the championship.Bamber happy at workOne of the busiest racers on the planet, Earl Bamber, was again back in a Porsche after his exploits at the Le Mans 24 Hours in the Porsche Supercup as a support class for the Austrian Formula One Grand Prix.

The New Zealander had a tough qualifying run and started the race from eighth on the grid.

Staying out of trouble and picking his moments, Bamber picked up two places in one of the most highly competitive motorsport categories to finish sixth and add valuable points to his title bid.

"Despite it not being my best qualifying performance I am happy with sixth place in the race," said Bamber. "We improved the car for the race and it was a lot of fun with lots of passing and some great battles.

"It's a long season so it's good to get some early points."

After three rounds of the series the Kiwi is nicely poised in second place in the championship.V8 Supercars results Defending V8 Supercars champion Jamie Whincup bounced back into series reckoning in Darwin with two wins on Saturday.

It was also a great day for New Zealand's three drivers, with Shane van Gisbergen third in the first race and seventh in the second and Scott McLaughlin fourth and fifth. Fabian Coulthard jumped from ninth in the first race to grab a podium finish in the second race.

Van Gisbergen continued his good form in Sunday's feature race with a second, but McLaughlin had to settle for eighth.

"I had a couple of slides two corners in a row and it's pretty hard to recover from that, the tyres were just gone," van Gisbergen said.

"I was second last at one point in that race so I wasn't expecting to finish second."

Coulthard had a horror third race where the team struggled with tyres and ended the race in 22nd place.