Motorsport: Kiwi tested in tough series

Matt Halliday has consistently finished inside the top 10. Photo / Supplied

Former A1 Grand Prix World Cup of Motorsport pilot Matt Halliday has been keeping his racing miles up contesting the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup.

The series has been around since the 1990s and is the premier support race at most of the Formula One Grand Prix.

It is generally regarded as the toughest, fastest and hardest of Porsche racing, in which the slightest of mistakes during qualifying can see drivers somewhere down the back of field come race day.

During Halliday's first foray into the series last year, he made a number of teams and established drivers sit up and pay attention by getting a podium in his first race. Despite missing most of the end of the 10-round series, he still came away as the leading rookie driver.

This year he's been campaigning the full series in a New Zealand-sponsored car and has had an up-and-down year. But so have most of the other drivers.

The competition is so tight, with mere 10ths of a second separating the top 10-15 drivers, that nearly all the racers have a DNF next to their name, including series leader Rene Rast.

"This has been the most difficult and competitive Porsche Supercup year in history," said Halliday. "There's probably only a handful of championships in the world at best that's this competitive, where you only have less than a second covering the top 21 cars.

"There's no room to hide. If you have a bad weekend and get it a little bit wrong in qualifying you're at the back of the grid. The teams in the top six or seven positions have the most experienced drivers, including Porsche factory guys who have done a huge amount of pre-season testing."

It's not like last year were Halliday was up against only about eight or nine super-quick guys, and the rest of the drivers, while not quite there to make up the numbers, weren't in the same league.

This year it's a different story. The fields are much bigger and the drivers considerably better.

"There's got to be about 20-21 drivers this season who are in with a chance to score well. Porsche now have their own car in the championship and put various Carerra Cup winners in the seat.

"You now end up with fields of 28-30 drivers of which 80 per cent are full-time paid drivers. It's very, very competitive this year."

Halliday has consistently finished inside the top 10 but not far enough up the pecking order to make a big impression on the championship table. After eight races he sits mid-table in 12th place, a hefty 83 points behind Rast.

With a win at Spa-Francorchamps at the end of August and the 22 points on offer, it is feasible Halliday could haul himself up to ninth.

"It's been a long year and every time I've gone to race it's been after 11 hours on a plane ... You're straight off the plane and in with the mechanics and engineers. It's not easy but you have to make the most it."

The great thing about Halliday competing in the series is that it's a Kiwi competing in a Kiwi-sponsored car.

At the forefront of those helping Halliday is none other than Giltrap Prestige.

Yet again, Colin Giltrap and his business team have put their money where their mouth is and are helping Kiwis race against the best.

"It's fantastic that the Giltraps stepped up to the plate and some of the supporters from our A1 days also came on board, like Zespri, Nichibo and a few other fantastic Kiwi companies.

"The whole plan is to make this a long-term project.

"We ideally would like a two-car team next year and have enough time to paint the cars black."

Matt Halliday
* Second New Zealand Porsche GT3 Championship 2005
* Fourth A1GP Series World Cup Of Motorsport 2005/6
* Second Formula Renault V6 Asia Championship 2006
* Second New Zealand Porsche GT3 Challenge Cup 2006
* Second A1GP Series World Cup Of Motorsport 2006/7
* Second New Zealand Porsche GT3 Challenge Cup 2008
* Second New Zealand Grand Prix - Toyota Racing Series 2008
* Rookie Trophy Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup, Europe, Middle East 2009