IT’S hard to know what’s better – Briney Rigby’s driving or Jonas Anderson’s judgment following the young Hawkesbury racer’s performances at the UIM World Championship in China recently.
The 16-year-old boat racer was hand-picked by Anderson to drive for Team Sweden at the world titles, which she will race in over four rounds.
Before the series Rigby admitted that her confidence to drive against the best F4 drivers in the world “wasn’t quite there yet” but the youngest competitor on the circuit did more than raise a few eyebrows in China.
While Germany’s Mike Szymura was the standout driver with two race wins in two days to take overall victory in the F-4S trophy, Rigby was hot on his tail all weekend to finish second – well clear of the rest of the field.
At her first practice session the crew remarked how competitive she would be and, at the time trials, she qualified in fourth for the first race – but the rival drivers still weren’t taking much notice of the young Australian newcomer.
But her rivals were quickly forced to pay more attention to her as she flew past them to take out second behind Szymura.
The rough conditions gave her terribly bad blisters on her hands, but she wouldn’t let it get in the way of a strong performance in race two.
She said she just “had to suck it up because there’s no way I was going to waste this opportunity of a lifetime”.
The Lower Portland driver continued to improve and went into the second race as the second fastest qualifier behind her nemesis Szymura – but this time she was just 0.46 of a second behind. With her hands bandaged, the young driver pushed Szymura all the way, to finish second once again, but she easily held off her more fancied male rivals to sit in second spot in the Eurofin Cup standings.
Rigby will continue racing in the series in Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the format of 20-minute races where the winner is determined by the number of laps completed in that time. The final round in Dubai is on December 19.