Craig Baird celebrates his round victory on the Albert Park podium - Photo Credit: Porsche Cars Australia
Craig Baird added a further two victories in the Porsche City Index Carrera Cup Australia at Albert Park to complete a clean sweep of the three races supporting the Australian Grand Prix.
The reigning champion's dominant round win ensured that he takes the lead of the standings.
In Saturday's Race 2, just like in Race 1 on Friday, he took the lead of the race at the start. He went onto win ahead of Jonny Reid and Alex Davison, closing the gap to the latter at the head of the points table.
Guest driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen repeated his fourth place from the first race, ahead of James Davison and Steven Richards. Kiwi teenager Andre Heimgartner was seventh, ahead of Elite class winner Max Twigg – who again finished just in front of Mark Skaife overall.
Reid began the third and final race on Sunday from pole, and converted that into victory. Reid and Davison again completed the podium.
“I couldn't have asked for a better round,” said Baird. “In the last race, the safety car got me a little out of rhythm and I made a little bit of a mistake on the restart and I paid the price into turn one, but got away with it.
“That puts me back into the championship lead, so I'm happy coming off a round in Adelaide where we had a puncture that took a few points away from us at the beginning of the season. As they say, everyone has a bad round.
“We won the final race in Adelaide, and winning your first race of the season is always the hardest. Now we've won four in a row, so we're going in the right direction.”
Reid was only making a one-off return to the series this weekend, so second place in the round represented a great result after missing the opener at Adelaide.
“Craig was in a league of his own this weekend,” said Reid. “When I look back, I think three second places and second overall for the round is great. I'd love to be back for some more Carrera Cup races this season but at the moment I'm taking it race by race and see what opportunities come along.”
In the final race, Richards was fourth ahead of James Davison, Heimgartner and Nick Foster. Fretzen was eighth, ahead of Twigg who completed a lockout for the round in the Elite class.
