Ashley Seward Motorsport’s Geoff Emery has claimed the first Pro-Am round victory for the new Porsche 911 Type 992 in Australia, with a consistent performance at the Australian Grand Prix.
Emery started positively on Thursday when he earned a front row start within the Pro-Am class. The #48 wheelman then drew first blood after coming out on top in a race-long battle in the opening encounter. Races two and three were just as a close with Emery picking up a runner-up finish and another victory. Emery was set for another race victory in the final outing for the weekend before being caught out by a Safety Car and dropping to fourth after late contact. The results across the four races were still enough for him to win the opening Pro-Am round of 2022.
Dean Cook and Scott Taylor made up the other two cars in the ASM stable, with the pair enjoying distinctly different weekend. Cook was left disappointed after failing to nail a lap in qualifying and admitted to playing catch up for the rest of the weekend. After getting caught in the pack, Cook came home with two sixth place finishes, a fourth and a fifth.
Taylor enjoyed a smoother start to the year as he drastically improved his speed over the weekend and finished inside the top 20 outright. Taylor qualified with a 1:57.3, a best lap time that he was able to lower to a 1:55.7 by the end of the weekend. Most importantly for Taylor, was the fact he finished without a scratch on the car and a much better understanding of how to drive the Type 992.
Quotes:
Geoff Emery – “There was a lot going on in that last race, I saw a couple cars go into the fence so I sort of rolled out of the throttle a bit expecting a Safety Car but it didn’t come out straight away and I lost the run in to turn 3 and lost the lead. I’ve really come to grips with the car around here and I’m really enjoying it, it was a good solid weekend. Trying to navigate the incidents that happen at the front is a bit confusing, because we are first on the scene and have to manage getting around that and also keep guys behind. Other than that, just a really fun weekend.”
Dean Cook – “It was a bit ordinary for me this weekend, very stop/start and we couldn’t get a clean race in. There were too many safety cars across the races. I qualified too far back which put me behind the eight ball to start with, which you can’t do in this competition. After that it was a fight just to keep up, I know I need to qualify better and be at the front ahead of the chaos at the back. The car speed feels good, we chased it a bit early and got some feel for it. I like Winton which is coming up next so I’m looking forward to having a crack.”
Scott Taylor – “This weekend ticked all the boxes for me. It was important to me that I stayed out of trouble, got better at understanding the car more, got faster and had fun. I was able to do all that and it was a great weekend. It’s round one of eight and it’s a really good base to build off.”
