Defending Mobil 1 V8 Supercars Champion Julian Fameliaris launched a successful opening round title defence at Zwartkops Raceway this past weekend (1-2 March) as the 2024 season commenced.
Fameliaris’ outings in Friday’s practice produced confidence-building results in his Lube-Net / Di Matteo Racing / Gavin Wilkins Racing Chevrolet Corvette, which he backed up with third place on Saturday morning’s grid, in a closely contested Qualifying Session where just 0.2 seconds covered the top three.
The first race, reduced to eight laps after an incident, saw the red flag deployed within the first two laps and saw Fameliaris continuing his tussle with pole sitter Thomas Reib and Warren Lombard. On Lap 7, he passed Lombard, but two laps were not enough to make up the ground to leader Reib. This saw Fameliaris finishing as the runner-up.
On the partially inverted grid for the second race, Fameliaris again lined up behind Lombard and passed him on Lap 6 to slot into second place. Leader Terry Wilford retired shortly after, which saw Fameliaris inherit the lead.
However, the overall victory points were not yet tallied up for Fameliaris. The Mobil 1 V8 Supercars Championship also awards points to overall winners on a race day, and points are based on accumulated times for the day’s races. Fameliaris’ performance in the second race gave him enough of an advantage over Reib to take the overall win.
“We had a solid start,” said Fameliaris. “We came into the weekend with every indication that this year will be a tough contest, and it certainly lived up to that notion. However, we started our campaign with a solid haul of points. We know that we will have to build on this momentum, as we saw last year, and that it was beneficial not to leave things to the end, and that’s a strategy that we want to repeat this year. We had a good pace this weekend, but we know better than to rest on our laurels, so it’s important to capitalise going forward.”
Round 2 of the Mobil 1 V8 Supercars Championship will take place at the Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit on April 11-13.
Julian Fameliaris would like to thank Di Matteo Racing and Gavin Wilkin Racing for making his 2024 campaign possible. In addition, he also wants to acknowledge and thank African Group Lubricants for making the 2023 season possible. For more information, please visit https://aglubricants.co.za/
For all news related to the Mobil 1 V8 Supercars Championship, please visit https://v8supercars.co.za/
Published by: Motorsport Fanatix
Picture Caption: Julian Fameliaris
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