Character Building Weekend For RAM Motorsport
RAM Motorsport’s Dylan O’Keeffe survived a character-building weekend at Mount Panorama in Round 6 of Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup.
The weekend started strongly with solid pace in Thursday morning's single 50-minute practice session. Unfortunately, that pace didn’t translate to qualifying on new tyres, and O’Keeffe was only able to qualify sixth fastest.
“After practice, our pace on old tyres was good, so we were confident heading into qualifying, but we didn’t get the new tyre gain we expected,” O’Keeffe said.
In Race 1, O’Keeffe finished seventh but dropped to ninth in Race 2 after being squeezed against the pit wall at the start and losing his front splitter.
O’Keeffe rebounded and had good pace in Race 3, setting the second-fastest lap, but an attempted overtaking move at the Chase went awry, dropping him to 12th.
“It wasn’t my best Carrera Cup round of the year, but Race 3 showed our race pace was still there, so I look forward to fighting back in the next round on the Gold Coast,” O’Keeffe concluded.
Unfortunately for O’Keeffe, things weren’t much better in the Bathurst 1000, where he paired up with Nick Percat in a Matt Stone Racing Camaro.
The pairing was sitting comfortably in the top ten for much of the race, but an unlatched passenger-side door forced the car back into the pits for an unscheduled stop, dropping them off the lead lap and outside the top 20.
“Normally at Bathurst, there are opportunities to recover if you have a small issue, but this year’s race was unusual in that there was only one Safety Car and hardly any cars with problems, so it was tough to recover from the extra stop,” O’Keeffe said.
O’Keeffe sits fourth in the overall standings with two rounds remaining. Our Porsche Carrera Cup team will be back in action in two weeks on the Gold Coast.
However, before that, our GT World Challenge Australia team will be back in action this weekend at Sydney Motorsport Park.
As always, RAM Motorsport would like to thank our partners and supporters, including Dexion Victoria, OFE Refrigerated Transport, Oilstar Racing Brake Fluid, Cain Equipment Australia, Tempur, United Property Fund, Omologato Watches, Purfit covers and Kase Building & Restoration Group.