by Kevin Lancaster

New Zealand racing driver Matt Halliday is again heading to Europe for back to back Rounds 7 and 8 of the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup. Round 7 will be held this coming weekend at Germany's Hockenheim circuit as a support race for the German Formula 1 Grand Prix while Round 8 is being run at The Hungaroring (Budapest) as support to the Hungarian Formula 1 Grand Prix the following weekend.

Both circuits will be new to the Californian based Kiwi star who has been spending time on his CXC Simulator attempting to learn and adapt to the characteristics of both tracks. Although he sees Hockenheim as having a few good overtaking locations, the Hungaroring will be another story with its twisty nature and more risky overtaking required.

Matt Halliday

With Halliday's Giltrap Racing Porsche 911 GT3 regularly having excellent racing pace, early emphasis will again be on qualifying in order to obtain a high starting grid position to avoid battling past other cars while front runners establish an advantage. The MRS organisation will again be busy engineering the car to the driver's requirements but are constantly making progress especially with the new tyre technology being used this season.

Another twist to the "double-header" of races will be Halliday's first race within an Eastern Bloc country although he admits his mind will be firmly focused on the job ahead:

"We have two new tracks coming up for me over the next two weekends so I'm looking forward to learning them and carrying on the progress we made at Silverstone. Even though I haven't been on either of the Hockenheim or Budapest circuits, I know the team has done many miles at both so I am sure we will have a good baseline on the car to start the weekend" he said on his arrival in Germany yesterday.

Richard Giltrap, from the Giltrap Group, hopes Matt can continue on from his solid result from Silverstone and improve on it over the next two weeks:

"We've had a difficult run in the first half of the season. We need to build on Silverstone and get some better results as we near the business end of the competition."

This weekend's programme will see the 45 minute free practice session late Friday afternoon with 30 minutes of qualifying on Sunday afternoon. The 15 lap race is scheduled to start late Sunday morning.