Three More Podium Finishes For Lobb

5/12/06

A week after his victorious debut in the second round of the MTA Formula Ford NZ Championship at Ruapuna, Caine Lobb was back behind the wheel at the Pukekohe circuit south of Auckland.

Eighteen year old Lobb left his Ford in Christchurch to jump back into his Sabre Formula First car for the third round of the Formula First National Championship. This year he aims to win the title where last season in his rookie year he placed fifth, and went on to win the Formula First Winter Series in the off season.

After three rounds of the championship Lobb has failed to yet win a race, but has managed to finish all races and keep at the pointy end of the field. His consistent results including three third places over this weekend have rewarded the Whangarei driver fourth place in the championship with five rounds remaining.

But Lobb feels winning races in the future is going to be difficult with one driver who seems to be holding all the cards at the moment.

"I ended up third in all the races" said Lobb who believes getting in front of the championship leader will be very difficult. "It's Selby Allison and then a race for everybody else - nobody can touch Selby."

"He's found something with his engine... he's found something to do and he's picked up some extra horsepower and I don't think he'll be telling anyone what it is" said Lobb. "He's won the last five races and nobody can touch him."

He is however happy to have stayed ahead of defending champion Michael Shepherd over the weekend.

"I finished ahead of Michael in all the races" said Lobb who plans to overtake him in the championship at the next round. "That's what I want to do."

With Selby Allison and Ian Foster also still ahead of him in the standings, Lobb has decided on the strategy to play in order to move up the ladder.

"I think we have to be patient with Ian and Selby because they are hot and cold drivers" says Lobb who before the start of the season said he would be concentrating on being consistent and finishing races. "I think it may just be a waiting game."

Lobb will play the waiting game while trying to stay consistent with high end results which will hopefully bring him the title before moving on to a full season in Formula Ford next year.

The weekend was not without its highs and lows for the series including a high speed accident down pit straight in qualification involving Stefan Webling and team mate Matthew Stubbs. Fortunately there was no physical injury to any driver although four cars needed repairs.

Lobb managed to escape becoming involved with that incident and very narrowly missed being caught up in a pile up down at Castrol Corner in race two on Sunday morning after some oil had been sprayed on to the track by another car.

"It was really slippery one lap and I nearly lost it on the sweeper and then Simon (Hardy) spun out in front of me (at Castrol) - I couldn't see anything but there was obviously something on the track - I had to slam on the anchors or I would have t-boned him!" he said.

Results

Race One

1st Selby Allison

2nd Simon Hardy

3rd Caine Lobb

4th Ian Foster

5th Michael Shepherd

Race Two

1st Selby Allison

2nd Ian Foster

3rd Caine Lobb

4th Michael Shepherd

Race Three

1st Selby Aliison

2nd Ian Foster

3rd Caine Lobb

4th Michael Shepherd

Iain Whitaker