Record Pole and Recovery Saturday
Jayden Ojeda in the MWM JAYCO Altima took an incredible pole position for Race 1 of Round 4 of the Dunlop Super2 Series on Saturday, breaking the qualifying record at Sydney Motorsport Park (SMP).
The qualifying session was officially declared wet prior to getting underway, although rain never came. Only five Super2 drivers set a lap time on the first runs, however several drivers in both Super2 and the Repco Supercars Championship had found their second push laps quicker than their first, and so Jayden opted for two warm up laps, putting it all on the line in a single lap shootout.
With the chequered flag out, last year’s leading rookie Ojeda set the fastest second and third sectors on his way to a 1:29.97 to lower the qualifying record of a 1:31.42 set by Garry Jacobson in 2017, bagging a second pole of his Super2 career. Jayden put a margin of over two tenths of a second on the Super2 field.
“Great credit to Jayden,” said MW Motorsport principal Matt White. “Really, congratulations to Jayden, he really earned it, he’s a great driver and it’s a fantastic result for JAYCO, Jayden has obviously done a really good job.”
“We only did one lap, we only completed one lap,” said the hometown driver Ojeda. “We struggled a little bit with the balance yesterday, so we kind of had to chuck it all on the line in that last run; and do two warm-up laps. We tuned the car up a little bit overnight and the car feels mega, so he has done a good job, old Matty White” he added.
Unfortunately, in Race 1 of the weekend things went sour for Jayden after the race start and on turn three of the first lap contact with another car forced Jayden off track. Now running in 23rd position Jayden raced through the field in a superb come back drive, to fight his way to 8th at the chequered flag.
As the field raced away Jayden began his recovery job. The JAYCO Nissan driver crossed the line 18th after the first lap and was up to 13th after three laps. Jayden was now the centre of the action, spectacularly throwing the JAYCO Nissan Altima into Moffat Corner (Turn 1) on multiple occasions as he tried to make up lost ground.
He was back into the top 10 when he went underneath Jaylyn Robotham at Bond Bend (Turn 2) on Lap 7 and overcame resistance from Matt McLean to move into ninth on Lap 8 at Turn 6. Matt Chahda was his next target, Ojeda going down the inside of the #18 Matt Chahda Falcon on Lap 12 at Turn 2, but by then, D’Alberto was too far up the road
The local Western Sydney driver crossed the line eighth, when the chequered flag flew three laps early due to time-certainty, with Jayden now just six points behind Zac Best in third place in the Dunlop Super2 Series.
Qualifying for Race 2 of the weekend starts Sunday at 10.10am (AEDT) with race 2 set to start at 2.00pm.
Check out all the video highlights below of Jayden’s Super Recovery.
Thank you to all my partners that helped get me on the grid for 2021, I’m extremely grateful to have the people I have supporting me! Thank you to Jayco, Lets Go Motorhomes, Sparesbox, City Hino, Mondiale VGL, Nepean Regional Security, AJM Transport, Johnny H Adventures, The Western Weekender & Parra News, One Point Health, Martcom, EurOz Driver Performance, and Super 6 High Performance.
