P8 The Highlight on Taylor’s Carrera Cup Return

After missing the previous round in Tailem Bend, Scott Taylor has returned with a top 10 result at Sandown in Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup.

Taylor quickly refamiliarised himself with the 992 Cup Car, finding an improvement of four and a half seconds between the two practice sessions on an unexpectedly dry Friday. The early morning qualifying session on Saturday came about in wet conditions with Taylor putting himself 11^th on the grid in Pro-Am.

Race one saw Taylor get amongst the action and engaging in battles for position. Improving his pace to the point where he can fight more regularly has been a season long objective for Taylor. Early on in the race Taylor was up to 10^th before slipping back to 12^th in the closing stages.

Race two was the highlight of the weekend in the Endurance Cup race. Taylor has always signalled his enjoyment of the longer races as he feels his pace improves as laps tick by, coupled with his penchant for avoiding incidents. That was again proved in a chaotic affair where many drivers ran into trouble, Taylor rising up to sixth by the halfway point of the race. A small mistake at turn six then cost Taylor two spots as he pushed the limits of the car, leading to an eighth place finish.

The final race ended fairly quickly, with an incident just after the starting line putting Taylor in the fence and forcing a retirement at the end of lap one.

“As a whole I’d say that was another positive weekend for us,” said Taylor.

“The goal is always to improve over the course of the weekend which I felt I was doing. I didn’t get to see how race three would have panned out which is a shame. I stayed out of trouble which is what I’ve been able to do all season until that issue off the line in race three.”

“I’m not really sure what happened, the boys can’t see anything wrong with it mechanically, but it just pulled to the left right after the launch and we were in the fence.”

The next round of the Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup Championship will take place from October 6-9 at the Bathurst 1000.

Championship Standings