Kai Allen has written his identify into the Supercars historical past books by taking out the primary of 4 races at Ruapuna Park, close to Christchurch in New Zealand.
Within the 37-lap race held over from final Sunday’s cyclone-affected Taupo assembly, the 20-year-old steered his Grove Racing Ford Mustang to a slim 0.742s win.
He held out 2023 champion and factors chief Brodie Kostecki (Dick Johnson Racing) over the ultimate excursions of the race.
The win was arrange when Allen made his pitstop 5 laps earlier than Kostecki and took two tyres to Kostecki’s 4. The web acquire for the teenager was 5 seconds, with 16 laps to run.
Kostecki seemed like he was going to march previous, giving Allen a faucet on the bumper with seven laps left, however the Grove Racing driver held him off.
The championship chief was then left as an alternative in a battle for second, following stress from a closing Walkinshaw TWG Racing Toyota GR Supra of Ryan Wooden.
“I’m slightly misplaced for phrases,” mentioned Allen, after profitable in his forty eighth Supercars begin. “To face right here with the primary in entrance of my automotive – it was coming and I knew it could occur.
“I knew that the two-tyre cease was going to be fairly highly effective. We took it into our personal palms. With about 5 laps to go I believed, ‘right here we go’, however it is rather onerous for the man behind to cross.”
Satirically, Allen established his Supercars credentials when he was an endurance driver for DJR, till the crew handed on an possibility and launched him mid-2024. Grove Racing wasted no time in signing him for 2025…
Kai Allen
Photograph by: Daniel Kalisz / Getty Pictures
“I knew I used to be on Battle Avenue 5 – 6 laps in,” Kostecki mentioned. “I used to be flat-out and it [the car] was nervous. I fell into the clutches of Woody once more, we’ve got a bit of labor to do.”
On the rostrum as soon as once more after giving Toyota its first Supercars win final week, Wooden is starting to appear to be a constant menace.
“We’ve received one thing occurring, we should look [at it],” he mentioned. “We received as much as Kai, I’m so glad for him. We raced a bit arising. I’m not good within the spots the place I must be good, we’ve got spots we’ve got to work on for tomorrow.”
The primary Supercars racing lap on the monitor was messy. From tenth again, there was a concertina of automobiles and a few of the drivers who noticed a neighborhood yellow flag anticipated a security automotive and slowed.
However the monitor stayed inexperienced and by the point the confusion cleared, the entrance 4 automobiles had been four-seconds away from the pack, and going away. The person who misplaced out most was Broc Feeney, who dropped to thirteenth.
“The primary three marshal factors had been waving yellows and security automotive boards, however they by no means truly referred to as it,” Allen defined.
Matt Payne backed up Allen’s consequence with fourth for Grove Racing, 17 seconds forward of Anton De Pasquale within the Group 18 Chevrolet Camaro.
James Golding took fifth within the Blanchard Racing Group Ford forward of Tickford’s Cam Waters (Ford) and Chaz Mostert (WTWG Toyota).
It was a catastrophe of a Friday for Triple Eight, as Will Brown suffered harm to the rear of the automotive and dropped to the again of the sector, ending seventeenth. After Feeney misplaced 5 spots within the opening lap melee he had a sluggish pitstop, and ultimately completed in tenth.
Racing continues over the remainder of the weekend, with two Dash format races on Saturday.
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