Character-Building Weekend for O’Keeffe at The Bend

Dexion Porsche Carrera Cup racer Dylan O’Keeffe is looking forward to returning to the holy grail of Australian motorsport – Mount Panorama, Bathurst – next month after enduring a character-building weekend at the AirTouch Bend 500.

While he showed promising speed in Friday’s practice sessions, O’Keeffe struggled with the balance of his RAM Motorsport/GWR Porsche Cup car in qualifying, scoring eighth and seventh on the grid for the two races.

“The track was good on Friday, but it became quite dusty on Saturday – we didn’t quite nail the setup for the changing conditions and it was very edgy in qualifying,” O’Keeffe said.

While he made a decent start in Race 1, that was as good as things got for O’Keeffe; while battling to make up positions, he was forced wide at Turn 5, the contact bending the steering.

Fighting hard to make up positions, O’Keeffe made contact with Jake Santalucia, tipping him into a spin and earning a penalty that dropped him to 18^th in the final classification.

O’Keeffe was looking forward to salvaging some points in Sunday’s race, but a heavy downpour while the cars were on the grid saw the race red-flagged to enable to field to change to wet tyres.

The drivers circulated behind the Safety Car for several laps but ultimately the lack of visibility and amount of standing water on the track left the officials with no choice to cancel the race.

“It was disappointing not to race on Sunday – I’m confident I could have made up some spots in the wet and salvaged some points,” O’Keeffe said.

“In saying that, it was definitely the right decision to abandon the race because the conditions were far too dangerous – if we had gone racing, there would have been a very high risk of damage.

“Overall, it was a weekend of woe but there were plenty of lessons learned. I’m looking forward to the next round at Bathurst – it’s one of my favourite tracks and we were fast there last year.”

Round 5 of Carrera Cup will be held at the Repco Bathurst 1000, 8-11 October.

Porsche Carrera Cup Round 4 Results Summary

Race 1 qualifying: 8^th

Race 2 qualifying: 7^th

Race 1: 18^th

Race 2: No race

Overall: 18^th

Porsche Carrera Cup Championship Points

1. Harri Jones – 567
2. Clay Osborne – 421
3. Aaron Love – 365
4. David Russell – 352
5. Dylan O’Keeffe – 306
6. Glen Wood – 295
7. Angelo Mouzouris – 279
8. Lachlan Bloxsom – 247
9. Jake Santalucia – 243
10. Max Geoghegan – 229