Kalle Rovanperä received a ten-second time penalty in his debut race.
Kalle Rovanperä finished second to last in the opening race. Toyota Gazoo Racing New Zealand
No huge success was expected Kalle Rovanperen debut in the Oceania regional formula series.
The Jyväskyläinen was more than a second behind the pole position winner in the time trial From Ugo Ugochukwuand only started from the 16th grid in the 18-lap race.
However, Ugochukwu failed at the start and let the home crowd’s favorite go by Louis Sharp pass to the top of the race.
Hampton Downs’ traditional motor track hosts the opening weekend of the Oceania Regional Formula Series and no less than four races.
The first of them was run the night before Saturday Finnish time.
The track was exceptionally bouncy, which naturally made driving difficult. Partly for that reason, Rovanperä slipped his car halfway on the grass at the beginning of the race and dropped a couple of places.
When 18 laps were run on the 3.8 kilometer track, the length of the opening race was 64.8 kilometers. For young drivers, physical strain began to show as mistakes.
However, Rovanperä has to pay the heavy tuition fees, because he was considered guilty Cooper Shipman’s to a small spin and for that a ten-second time penalty was slapped on the Finn.
Of course, the most important thing about this race was to gain experience in small formula driving.
Sharp held on to his lead until the end, and took the win in the opening race. In the end, Rovanperä was third last, i.e. in 17th place.
However, the time penalty did not affect his ranking at all in the end.
In the second race later on Saturday, the top eight start in reverse order of merit.
It does not affect Rovanperä’s situation. He starts from the 17th square.