Minda Motorsport

"It’s a pretty exciting start to the weekend,” said Sager. “I like this track, it’s really technical, and gives you a good reward when you get it right. It was pleasing to see we recorded the fastest first sector of anyone today, and were quite competitive overall.

“We had a very useful test here last week, so we hoped we’d be able to surprise a few people today. Having said that, it’s obviously it’s very early days for my career, so it’s important we don’t get ahead of ourselves.

“The car was great this morning, and the times showed that, but I had a lot of oversteer in the afternoon session. Tomorrow with a new set of tyres in qualifying, I’d like to think we’ll go a bit quicker.

“It’s a great situation for me this weekend because to be here with CAMS Rising Stars. It’s a very professional team with good cars, but there’s no real pressure on me to get results yet, so we’ll just learn as much as we can and see where we end up tomorrow.”

Team-mate Matthew Brabham ended the day just four tenths of a second behind Sager, which left him in 14th place - such is the closeness of the 2010 field.

“I’m happy with the way today’s gone,” said Brabham afterward. “It’s a very different style of track to what I’ve raced on previously with these cars, so it’s important we take a thorough approach to understanding what the car needs here.

“I was very happy with the balance of the car in the first session this morning - to be only seven tenths off of the top spot straight away was pleasing. We need to take some of the oversteer out of the car for tomorrow. The whole team will go through the data tonight and see what we can do. Liam was also struggling with oversteer, and we ended up setting identical times in the second session, so hopefully with Jack’s (Le Brocq) input as well we’ll sort it out.”

Jack Le Brocq, who starred earlier in the season by taking points on debut at Albert Park, had a challenging opening day at Winton, ending the day 18th overall.

"We’ve tried a lot of different set ups today, and I think we made positive gains towards end of the second session," he said. “Obviously it wasn’t the greatest day for me, but it’s a useful experience to spend the day learning how the car reacts to changes.

“We’ve made good progress which is the most important thing, and it’s good to have a couple of team-mates to debrief with as well.”

Team principal Bruin Beasley is not surprisingly looking forward to seeing his chargers head out for qualifying tomorrow morning.

"It’s looking like an interesting weekend of Formula Ford racing ahead,” he said. “The whole field is just so close - the level of competition is incredible. We’ve shown some really promising speed today, but at the same time we admit that we’ve struggled in some areas. We will keep working on it and hopefully help all three guys continued to move forward tomorrow.”

The CAMS Rising Stars are proudly supported by the Confederation of Australian Motorsport, the Australian Sports Commission, Minda Motorsport, Penrite Oils, OAMPS Insurance Brokers, Boylan Traffic Solutions, Relux Slabs, Revolution Racegear, LCF Merchandise and Mark Webber.


WINTON MOTOR RACEWAY, WINTON, VIC – FRIDAY


Practice 1
4. Liam Sager, Spectrum 011b, 1:26.7843
12. Matthew Brabham, Spectrum 011d, 1:27.2425
19. Jack Le Brocq, Spectrum 011c, 1:27.8455

Practice 2
11. Liam Sager, Spectrum 011b, 1:27.2192
13. Matthew Brabham, Spectrum 011d, 1:27.2941
18. Jack Le Brocq, Spectrum 011c, 1:27.6430

Practice 1 & 2 combined
6. Liam Sager, Spectrum 011b, 1:26.7843
14. Matthew Brabham, Spectrum 011d, 1:27.2425
18. Jack Le Brocq, Spectrum 011c, 1:27.6430