Halliday sixth in Bahrain GP curtain raiser

New Zealand driver Matt Halliday flew the New Zealand flag at this morning's Bahrain grand prix, finishing sixth in the second race of the Porsche Supercup series.

The Porsche races were a curtain raiser for the Bahrain Formula One grand prix.

Halliday, formerly the New Zealand A1 grand prix driver, managed just two laps of yesterday's first race before withdrawing because of power steering failure.

The Los Angeles-based Kiwi was in unfamiliar surroundings -- he had not raced before at Bahrain's Sakhir circuit and had not done any pre-season testing of the latest model Porsche.

The second race saw Halliday make a clean start for the 10-lap sprint and rapidly work his way up through the field from ninth on the grid to finish sixth.

"It was a good result in the second race however it was a shame we lost some time avoiding a crash on the first lap which meant the gap to the cars in front was too big to close," Halliday said in a press release.

"Despite the dramas yesterday which only allowed me to complete two laps, it was a learning weekend in a brand new car I had not driven before.

"We will now do some testing before Barcelona and be ready fight to hard for the rest of the season."

The next Supercup rounds are at Barcelona's Catalunya circuit in Spain on May 9th.

Halliday heads back to New Zealand to contest the final round of the Porsche GT3 series at Taupo this weekend.

- NZPA