by Kevin Lancaster

New Zealand racing driver Matt Halliday has powered his Giltrap Racing Porsche 911 GT3 to a well deserved 9th place in Round 7 of the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup held at Germany's Hockenheim circuit on Sunday night. Halliday was a star of the race after having to battle his way up from 16th grid position following an initial set back in the exceptionally close qualifying session. With weather conditions varying over the weekend, the race was eventually run on a dry track which again showed Halliday to have good racing pace.

Qualifying was always going to be a challenge owing to the fierce competitiveness of such a star-studded field with the top 21 cars all lapping within eight tenths of a second of the pole position time. Halliday was well placed throughout despite the dampish conditions making use of the track edges extremely difficult. Unfortunately, on his final fast lap, he rode a curb slightly which only cost him a few tenths of a second but was sufficient to drop him out of the top group to 16th place on the starting grid.

Matt Halliday at Hockenheim. Photo: Porsche AG

With the "Hockenheimring" being of a fast nature with overtaking possibilities it was essential the Californian based Kiwi made the most of a good opening lap. After a copy book start, he seized the advantage to immediately climb nine places on the first lap and engage in a race long tussle with two other cars. His progress was also aided by an incident involving two of the front running cars causing him to again take avoiding action:

"This was a good result from 16th on the grid straight up to 8th on first lap. We got an amazing start to what was a very aggressive race but we had good pace so we have to be happy. Although we are classified 9th we get 7th place points as two drivers in front were guest starters. I had a touch with another car mid-race which damaged the steering but other than that car was great so a good result all round for the team" he explained after the race.

The Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup now moves on to Budapest for next weekend's race at the Hungarian Formula 1 Grand Prix. This will be Halliday's first race in the Eastern Bloc where he expects to find the track tight and twisty making overtaking difficult which will again put emphasis on qualifying.