HOLIHAN MAKES THE MOST OF HIS OPPORTUNITY WITH NEW TEAM
After a 14 month hiatus, Daniel Holihan, the 32 year old Sydney-sider returned back to racing. In 2020, he almost walked away from the sport, but on his return Holihan showed that fighting spirit hadn’t left him despite having zero seat time leading up to Round 2 of the NSW Formula Ford 1600 Series.
Unlike previous seasons where Holihan was backed by an extensive team fit-out, where they had more than eight crew members he returned with Barton Mawer Motorsport squad, which is a quarter of the size. Holihan’s driver coach, Barton Mawer, led the team and on the spanners was karting champion Matheus Lacerda, whilst Daniel’s girlfriend Brooke Krumbeck helped out with marketing and PR around the track.
Daniel Holihan went into the weekend with no expectations with the new team, but he was hungry for a decent result. The team had barely any data to work off leading up to the weekend with the Spectrum 011K, but the team made it work despite there being a few teething issues to start off the weekend.
Holihan showed signs of early pace during Friday’s free practice finishing the day in 3rd place behind fellow FF1600 veteran Scott Tidyman and rising star Daniel Frougas. Saturday proved to be completely different conditions to Friday’s practice sessions. Daniel Holihan put his newly built Spectrum 011 on pole position during qualifying, for the first time out in the foggy, cold, slippery conditions by two tenths over Frougas.
SuiteBlack BM Motorsport team driver Daniel Holihan commented, “I’m pretty pleased to end qualifying with a pole position, but we have a lot more to work to do with the team. We may be small, but Bart, Matheus and Brooke have been amazing this weekend. They’ve all played their part in me getting back to where I want to be with my return to racing and grabbing a pole position is a perfect way to start.”
Race one proved a difficult task as the team was trying to work out vision issues with Holihan’s visor, which was constantly fogging up. Unfortunately the team didn’t get the problem solved until the Sunday, so Holihan drove with a foggy visor in race one, which dropped him from pole position to the back of the field. Daniel Holihan then drove through the field passing car after car to finish second place in the 1600’s.
The final races on Sunday were all delayed by two hours due to extreme fog conditions. However, once the races got going things heated up once more! Race two proved a completely different challenge as the team was trying several set-up options on the Spectrum 011K, whilst trying to perfect the set up. Unfortunately, they got it wrong with setting the tyre pressures too high. However, Holihan still managed to hold onto the second place during a dramatic race inside the cockpit where not only had the tyres had gotten too hot, but the mirrors had come loose. To top it off, the seat had also come unstuck from its original position in the car, which had to get velcroed for race three.
Late in the day, due to previous delays we finally approached race three. Holihan produced a great performance overcoming the previous technicalities with his car, however the race ended prematurely due to a red flag because of a significant collision between Valentino Astuti and Jake Donaldson who collided in the Duratec class. The race was stopped with only half points being awarded and Holihan coming in third place.
Overall, for Round 2 of the series, Holihan came away with second place in the 1600’s, which was an amazing achievement after 14 months away from the track.
Team manager Barton Mawer commented after the weekend, “That was a brilliant debut for the DHR/Barton Mawer Motorsport team at Wakefield Park. Dan was composed all weekend and drove really well. We can’t wait for the next one, I think we have a lot of potential as a team together.”
Round 3 of the NSW Formula Ford Series will take place at Sydney Motorsport Park on July 31st - Aug 1st.
