Collet tops Teretonga testing times
The Castrol Toyota Racing Series is back in action this weekend at Teretonga, Invercargill for the second round of the championship and after the first two sessions of testing on Thursday, drivers were quickly near to the category record pace.
It was Brazil's Caio Collet for mtec Motorsport (pictured) who emerged as quickest of the day, although he did end his second session in the gravel at the first turn.
The challenging turn one caught out several drivers during the day, with red flags shown in the first session after Emilien Denner and Rui Andrade went into the gravel and Lirim Zendeli in the second session later in the afternoon. Zendeli made contact with the barriers and did minor damage to his Giles Motorsport run car. Collet's off came at the end of the second session.
Topping the times in the first session were M2 Competition's Liam Lawson on a 53.836 second lap around the short 2.57km circuit, already just a few tenths off the category lap record set by former champion and now Racing Point F1 driver, Lance Stroll. Collet was second on a 54.162.
Others to show pace during the two sessions were M2 Competition’s Igor Fraga, who currently sits second in the points to Lawson, the impressive Franco Colapinto for Kiwi Motorsport, Oliver Rasmussen for mtec Motorsport and young Tijmen van der Helm, who continues his testing programme with Kiwi Motorsport ahead of his race debut in the category next weekend at Hampton Downs.
Ido Cohen and Yuki Tsunoda also lapped in the low 54 second bracket in the afternoon's second session in their M2 Competition run Toyota FT-60s.
Collet's 53.806 would stand as the fastest time of the day, with Fraga second with a 53.830 and Lawson's 53.806 the third fastest time.
There are three more practice sessions on Friday. Qualifying for Race 1 takes place at 10.25am on Saturday, with the first race of the weekend scheduled for 3.10pm.
