Round 4 of the NSW Formula Ford Championship - SMSP

Round 4 of the NSW Formula Ford Championship was held on the North Druitt Circuit at Sydney Motorsport Park on 12th August 2023.

Friday Practice was a big learning curve for Tommy Kalamakis who hadn’t driven the car for more then 12 weeks and it was his first time driving on the Druitt Circuit layout.

Practice 1 was spent getting familiar with the car and track configuration.

Practice 2 Tommy began working on improving his lap times with effective debriefs and setup changes to the car.

Practice 3 the sun began to set and the track lights came on. The conditions made it interesting and Tommy adapted well as we tried to interpret how the balance and overall feel of the car would compare to conditions during daytime running.

Qualifying took place just before midday on Saturday and Tommy was running a used set of tyres. He had reached the limit of new tyres able to be allocated during the season. Tommy struggled to find space during the session and an incident during one his better laps brought out the red flag. He did end up qualifying P2 to secure a front row start for Race 1 with a time of a 1:07.9644.

Race 1 Tommy got a blistering start and made his way into the lead at Turn 2, however that wouldn’t last long. An average exit onto the main straight meant that he went into Turn 1 side by side at 210 kmh on the dirty line. He ended up losing 2 positions but managed to bring the car home in P2.

Race 2 Tommy found a lot more pace and in his own words, "The car felt hooked up and quick in the high speed corners." After being in a train with 2 Duratecs for the whole race, Tommy lost the lead in the dying laps. But was very happy to finish P2.

Race 3 commenced under lights and Tommy once again got a cracking start from P2. He duelled it out with Will Lowing for the whole Race ending up side by side in the penultimate corner. It got a bit too close and resulted in Tommy running wide in the final turn, ultimately losing out on the Race Win.

After the weekend was said and done, Tommy took the overall Win in class, extending his Championship lead to 83 points ahead of 2nd place.

"A big thank you to the Team at Anglo Australian Motorsport for their tireless efforts and hard work during the weekend. Another shout out goes to NSW Formula Ford and (fellow competitor) Jeff Senior for their hard work and dedication to making the weekend happen, a lot goes on behind the scenes to get us racing!" - Tommy Kalamakis

If you aren't already, give us a follow on Facebook & Instagram to keep up to date with all of the Teams activity.

• Race Team - @angloaustralianmotorsport
• Driving Experience - @angloracingacademy
• Driver - @tommykalamakis

 Here is the onboard footage from Race 3 under lights at Sydney Motorsport Park!