23 April 2020 | Featured

V8 Touring Car driver stars in open wheel battle at Monza

Young simulator ace Harley Haber has starred in the fourth round of the carsales ARG eSport Cup at Monza, taking his first race win and snatching the series lead.

In the first round of the series using the single seat Formula 3 car, Haber was in scintillating form at the famous Italian venue. Representing the V8 Touring car field, the 17-year-old qualified third before taking victory in Race 1 and storming from 20th in the reverse grid race to cross the line second behind Dutchman Neils Langerveld in Race 2.

In Race 1, Haber withstood heat from Garry Rogers Motorsport representative Luca Giacomin, with the pair separated by just 0.5s at the conclusion of the race.

Former A1GP driver turned Honda TCR driver John Martin enjoyed a return to his open-wheeler roots with third, albeit 13s off the leaders, while fellow TCR driver Dylan O’Keeffe was fourth.

While the drivers at the front enjoyed a clean race, there was carnage at the back. Kiwi entrant Jaden Ransley qualified fourth both spun at the exit of the first chicane, cause a mass pile up.

Series leader Ash Sutton also had a shocking first race. The former British Touring Car champion qualified 27th and a late crash dropped him to the back of the field. He fought back to salvage 13th in Race 2, but his difficult round has dropped him back to second in the title chase.

The reverse-Top 20 race saw a dominant performance from pole-sitter Langeveld, who fought off an early challenge for S5000 regular Thomas Randle two scoot away to a 3.4s win.

Randle was left to fight for second with Nathan Herne, the pair trading places in a classic Monza slipstreaming battle.

With only a few laps remaining, Haber caught the pair, and managed to pull off a daring move at Turn 1 to move into second place that he would hold until the end.

Herne ended up in third, while Randle dropped back to fifth at the finish after spinning at the second chicane not long after being passed by Haber.

Round 5 of the carsales ARG eSport Cup will again feature the Formula 3 car, to be held at Barcelona in Spain next Thursday.

Provisional points after Round 4.

POS	#	Category	Driver	Points
1	21	V8TC	Harley Haber	239
2	116	TCR AU	Ash Sutton	216
3	29	Trans Am	Nathan Herne	213
4	33	TCR AU	Dylan O’Keeffe	204
5	47	TCR NZ	Jaden Ransley	200
6	7	TCR AU	Luca Giacomin	164
7	75	TCR AU	Garth Tander	159
8	6	TCR AU	Jordan Cox	151
9	38	TCR AU	Tim Mcreynolds	146
10	68	V8TC	Jonathan Beikoff	145
11	39	ARG	Ben McMellan	137
12	31	S5000	James Golding	135
13	48	Trans Am	Nic Carroll	133
14	64	TCR AU	Tim Brook	127
15	18	TCR AU	Aaron Cameron	125
16	8	Trans Am	Aaron Seton	118
17	89	S5000	Braydan Willmington	113
18	26	TCR NZ	Tom Alexander	108
19	15	TCR AU	Michael Clemente	101
20	5	Trans Am	George Miedecke	96
21	10	TCR NZ	Niels Langeveld	96
22	27	S5000	Barton Mawer	93
23	2	TCR AU	Chelsea Angelo	93
24	49	S5000	Thomas Randle	90
25	99	Trans Am	Brett Holdsworth	88
26	92	S5000	Ricky Capo	83
27	23	S5000	Tim Macrow	82
28	117	TCR AU	Ben Bargwanna	81
29	11	TCR AU	Nathan Morcom	72
30	133	TCM	Cameron Mason	63
31	41	TCR AU	Trent Harrison	60
32	9	TCR AU	Jay Hanson	59
33	24	TCR AU	John Martin	52
34	35	V8TC	Jason Gomersall	50
35	22	TCR NZ	Jack Milligan	45
36	777	TCR AU	Declan Fraser	45
37	55	TCR NZ	Rhys Gould	44
38	19	TCR AU	Matt Simmons	38
39	28	TCR AU	Rowan Shepherd	37
40	91	TCR AU	Jaxon Evans	37
41	17	TCM	Steve Johnson	34
42	4	TCR AU	Mike Sinclair	32
43	77	TCR NZ	Stan Van Oord	31
44	12	Trans Am	Peter Herd	29
45	67	TCM	Jeremy Gray	20
46	3	TCR AU	Lee Partridge	16
47	17	TCM	Jett Johnson	15
48	1	TCR AU	Will Brown	12
49	30	TCR AU	Sam Stratten	10
50	222	TCR AU	Luke King	6
51	117	TCR AU	Jason Bargwanna	6
52	122	TCR AU	Blake ‘Bilko’ Williams	4
53	88	TCR AU	Tim Dossett	3
54	85	TCM	Adam Garwood	2
55	14	TCR AU	Aaron Borg	2