Julian Fameliaris finished the 2021 Mobil 1 V8 Supercars season on the podium at the Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit this past weekend (February 3-5) to finish the season in seventh place in the championship.
With only three days between the double-header events in the past two weeks, the Lube-Net Di Matteo Racing Chevrolet Corvette still had a few technical issues to resolve from Zwartkops Raceway, but this was completed in enough time to allow Fameliaris to participate in Thursday’s practice sessions. On Friday morning, a leaking differential seal compromised his qualifying session but not before he set the seventh-fastest time.
But from this point forward, the team’s fortunes changed. With an already extensive gap between the qualifying session and the scheduled first race, they were able to conduct repairs. A severe storm also brought all on-track activities for the day to a halt before the start of the first race. Subsequently, Race 2 on Saturday morning would be a 10-lap affair and count for double points. Fameliaris delivered a solid performance on Saturday to finish in third place. Continuing his impressive podium result ratio since November 2020.
Despite missing two rounds due to professional commitments and only recording three finishes in the season, he gained two positions to seventh place on the points table. All his finishes were on the podium, inclusive of his maiden win in Round 2. Despite mechanical issues that plagued him throughout the year, he consistently showed front running pace while demonstrating that he can both apply pressure in position battles and deliver level-headed performances when defending.
“It has been a season of our biggest highs and some of our lowest moments since joining the Mobil 1 V8 Supercars series in 2019, but it is days like today that inspires us to keep pushing” said Fameliaris. “We have a long break before our next round and our car will go for a full strip and assemble appointment at Di Matteo Racing. We have certainly come a long way since joining the series when we merely hoped to keep in contention with some of the seasoned campaigners, we are now regularly doing battle with them. There is also no doubt about the pace in our car, we just need to resolve the reliability problems. To everyone who put in the long hours, in the season and particularly over the last two weeks and to all our supporters, today was for you and we will make sure that there are more of these days coming your way.”
The Mobil 1 V8 Supercars next take to the track on 22 & 23 April where they will compete in the second round of their 2022 championship at Zwartkops Raceway.
Produced and Distributed by Brandsponential on behalf of Julian Fameliaris
