Brabs has a shocker at Darwin!

Matthew Brabham endured a torrid weekend at Round 4 of the Genuine Ford Parts Formula Ford Championship held here today at the picturesque Darwin circuit.

Matthew was taken out within two laps of the start in race 1 & 3 and had a problem with the gearbox jumping out of gear towards the end of race 2. To add insult to injury the officials harshly tried to penalize Matthew 5 championship points for a coming together in the first corner of heat 1. An appeal by the CAMS Rising Star / Minda Motorsports team had the penalty reduced to a suspended sentence, but the team is still mystified to what exactly Matthew did wrong.

Darwin was always going to be a tough ask for the young 16 year old racer as there were only 2 practise sessions to learn a track he had never been to before, then it was straight into qualifying. Matthew was a little disappointed to end up only 13^th on the grid after not quite getting to grips with the track early enough and making a couple of small mistakes did not help the cause much either.

Race 1 started well with Brabs making his usual dynamite start and jumped the row in front, into the first corner Matt was on the inside next to the white line when the two cars on the outside squeezed into him and the subsequent touch sent them off the race track, somehow the officials thought it was Matthew’s fault in a really strange decision. After surviving the first corner Matthew was again in the wars when on the 2^nd lap he was side swiped by another competitor sliding down the inside with no hope of stopping, the collision sent Matt into an immediate retirement with broken suspension.

Race 2 saw Matthew at least get to the finish unscathed but a nice run through the field from a 21^st starting position up to 14^th  at one stage was compromised at the end by the car jumping out of gear which meant Matt slipped back to 16^th at the end.

The final race was another disaster, a monster start again saw Matt leap frog the row in front but unfortunately it all ended in the 2^nd corner when another car came in too hot and went over the front of Matt’s car sending it off the road and into retirement with almost the exact same damage as was sustained in the first race.

“Luck is definitely not on our side at the moment, that is the 2^nd race meeting in a row now that people have kept running into me, there are a few people not using their brains at the moment and I always seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. As the saying goes sometimes you’re the bug and sometimes you’re the windscreen, I am definitely the bug right now.” A dejected Matty Brabs said. “It was not the result I was hoping for, no championship points and a repair bill that might be around $8,000 or so, not one of our better days”.

Matthew's next race will be Round 5 of the Genuine Ford Parts Formula Ford Championship to be held at the Townsville street circuit on July 11.