BECHE SHINE SIN FORMULA FORD BAT HURST RACES
East well misses event due to illness
Illness forced UK Formula Ford driver Michael Eastwell to miss the Bathurst 12 Hour-supporting FF1600 races last weekend, as Le Mans podium finisher Mathias Beche took his place.
Beche, 32, was in Australia for the first time to compete in the 12 Hours in a KTM X-bow GT4, but also ended up taking a pair of second place finishes in the FF1600 support races.
The LMP1 Rebellion driver was invited to take Eastwell’s Spectrum 010 seat in a restaurant earlier in the week.
He had only driven a Formula Ford once in his career, 15 years ago, and had never driven a H-pattern gearbox car on a track because he had gone straight into Formula Renault after karting.
“I’ve never right-foot braked apart from in a road car,” said Beche.
“I had to heel-and-toe and discover the track. The first session I did five laps and was something like 10 seconds off the pace! Then it was qualifying and I figured it out and was P2 by three or four tenths.
“I haven’t done a standing start for a long time because I’ve done endurance racing for a long time. But I got the lead!
“With this car there is a lot of drag racing so it’s about getting the tow and stuff, so it’s a nice game.
“We had a good fight with the leaders but it was really close. It’s about being behind the leader on the last lap so you can overtake with the slipstream.
“The field was awesome, 45 cars I think. I was quite surprised to be straight away there [on the pace].”
Paired with Dean Koutsoumidis, Jake Parsons and James Winslow in the 12 Hours, the X-bow suffered damage at the start before mechanical issues stymied progress, but Beche reckons he scored a GT4 lap record later in the race.
Of his absence, Eastwell said: “I had to pull out of Bathurst, I haven’t been well recently and decided it wasn’t a track to race at not feeling 100%.”