Dean Tighe has secured back-to-back Motorsport Australia Supersprint Championship titles after dominating the 2023 event over the weekend.
 
Run by the Porsche Car Club of Queensland at Morgan Park Raceway, 34 entries from around the country made their way to Warwick to take part in the event, but none were able to match up with Tighe throughout their 11 allocated sessions.
 
Finishing with a record-breaking time of 1:05.891, the next best competitor to Tighe was Steven Woodbridge, whose best lap was almost six and a half seconds off, while Slade Orsmond rounded out the podium a further three-tenths off.
 
Going into the event as a heavy favourite, it didn’t take long for Tighe to assert his dominance over the competition, as he went fastest in all seven of his competitive sessions after practice.
 
The Queenslander essentially won the event on his first attempt with a time of 1:07.160 before switching his target to the lap record, previously set by 2022 Porsche Paynter Dixon Carerra Cup Champion Harri Jones in a Formula 3 car.


Woodbridge also set his fastest time of the weekend on his first attempt but was unable to able to improve, while Tighe improved his time on all seven of his flying laps before eventually breaking the record on his penultimate run.
 
Despite the sweltering conditions, Tighe opted to have one last session in order to break the one-minute and six-second mark, which he was able to do on his last attempt around the three-kilometre circuit.
 
In what was a highly successful day for Tighe, the now two-time champion was pleased with his victory and to break the record.
 
“Firstly, I must give a special congratulations to the Porsche Car Club of Queensland. They did a superb job all weekend and ran a really good event,” Tighe said.
 
“It was a good feeling to win and go back-to-back in this championship. The car was perfect and even though I made no changes to it, we got quicker and quicker as the weekend went on.
 
“I went into the event knowing that I would be in a good position to win, but to break the record was the sweetener. I felt like we kind of earned the title with the record because if any of the major players had shown up, they would have had to be on their A-game to beat me.


“The event was also actually really enjoyable and invigorating because it felt like we were doing a Supercars Shootout or in F1 Qualifying lap when we were going out and doing the flying lap.”
 
With Tighe in a league of his own for the outright win, the battle for the minor podium positions was far more competitive with the event’s next fastest four drivers all within half a second of each other.
 
Woodbridge ended up winning that battle with a comfortable three-tenth buffer, while Orsmond’s fastest time was just four hundredths quicker than the fourth-placed Brad Gall and just over two-tenths quicker than Phil Sutcliffe.

Not only did Orsmond enjoy a podium finish, but he also had a successful weekend in the racing side of the event, which started off with pole position.
 
Slade then managed to win all three of the event’s races in comfortable fashion, while Wayne Hennig finished second in two of the three races, including the final 33-lap enduro.
 
In the other supersprint groups, Brad Rankin was fastest in Group 4 with a time of 1:21.789 which saw him finish 10th outright, and Group 4 winner John Adams was fastest with a best lap time of 1:27.390.
 
View the full results of the Motorsport Australia SuperSprint Championship.
 
The fourth and final National Speed and Auto Test Championship event for 2023 will be the Motorsport Australia Hillclimb Championship at Ringwood Park Motor Complex on 26-29 October.