Ill-fated Race 9 strategy gamble Stanaway's call

It was a rollercoaster Saturday afternoon for local hope Richie Stanaway in Taupō, who after rising from 13th to fifth, dropped to 21st.

PremiAir Racing driver Stanaway finished Saturday’s two Taupō races in 17th and 21st, with teammate James Golding ninth and 18th.

Stanaway was boxed in during the yellow flag pit stops in the first race, and came home in the same position he started in.

In the Super Soft race, Stanaway powered from 13th to 10th in the opening laps, before making a bold call to change rear tyres only.

It initially paid track position dividends, with Stanaway rising to an impressive fifth, which would have easily been his best performance of the season.

However, while he was able to remain in the top 10 until seven laps to go, Stanaway was caught out by tyre degradation, and he plummeted to 21st.

Where leader Chaz Mostert was lapping in the 1:30s and 1:31s, Stanaway was struggling to lap in the 1:33s.

"Unfortunately for the #62 in that race we then made the wrong call with a two-tyre strategy which was a good one last year but this year it obviously wasn’t,” PremiAir Competition Director Ludo Lacroix said.

"If we had taken four tyres we would have been in the top 10, and maybe even top five, and that would have been a great result.

"But we started going backwards and once you go backward you start losing a lot of time as people are coming at you, and it takes time off you, and then there’s another and another."

Stanaway added: “It has been a pretty disappointing day for us, we didn’t maximise what we had.

"The promising thing is that we had good speed at the start of the second race – it was the most competitive we have been all year, and it was nice to feel like we were in the race.

"It gives us something to work from which is helpful, and now we just get to work and try and do what we can to make sure we can have a better day tomorrow.”