DAVID WALL is in his element.

Freed from the frustrations of always being ‘someone else’s teammate’ in the Supercars championship and back in a car he truly loves to drive, the Sydneysider with a surprisingly long CV currently leads this year’s Porsche Carrera Cup Australia.

And that’s no easy feat in a championship as hotly contested as this year’s one-make title is.

Carrera Cup may have its knockers – not everyone likes the often-cerebral style of racing it can produce – but if you call it uncompetitive you are detached from the realities of the motor racing world.

Six drivers had won races to the half-way point of the championship – four of them having won the first four rounds. In a field stacked with experienced hands like Alex Davison and young but experienced hotshots like Andre Heimgartner, winning isn’t easy.

So, for Wall to be the first to win multiple rounds this year, thanks to a dominating performance in the series’ most recent round at the Sepang circuit in Malaysia, is no mean feat.

Adding to the record is the fact that Wall remains the only driver to finish ever race this year (there have been 14) in the top six, all the while beating drivers ranging from former factory driver Davison to a potential future one in Dylan O’Keefe or Jaxon Evans.

The figures become even more impressive when you consider that he’s doing it in a single-car team, tucked away in Sydney and far from the motorsport ‘hubs’ of Melbourne and Brisbane.

While Sonic Motor Racing and McElrea Racing are the Carrera Cup powerhouses, and Ash Seward Motorsport and DNA Racing both have cars at the pointy-end, Wall Racing is the little team from Sydney that could.

“Watch the little bit!” Wall, who towers over most people in the paddock, quips when we chat in the baking heat and sapping humidity of the Sepang paddock following the opening race in Malaysia recently.

Jokes aside, it’s continuity and efficiency that has built Wall Racing into a Carrera Cup powerhouse.

“I don’t know if we punch above our weight, but we’ve got a very good bunch of guys who have been with us for a very long period,” Wall elaborates.

“My engineer, Steve Williams, has been with me since ’06, which was Carrera Cup and my rookie season. Whenever I’ve driven a Porsche, be it Carrera Cup or 12-hour or one of those kind of things, he’s been my engineer.

“Dave Fyfe (team manager) is in the workshop day to day with me and James Wadell, and those group of guys have been on the forefront for many years and that pays off.

“We’ve got a very good group of ‘subbies’ which come in and help us and that’s obviously a benefit when everyone knows what we’re talking about. Everyone comes in and does their job and so far it’s paying off. Against the might of McElrea, or Sonic – and Ash Seward is doing a good job lately, there’s no shortage of competition. You just have to concentrate on yourself and do the best job you can.”

It’s competition that both Wall and his team thrive on and have done so for some time.

The team has been around longer than most think, with its core going back decades when David’s late father, Des, was dominating Sports Sedans at Oran Park in his remarkable Toyota Supra.

As well as running Des’ cars, the team was involved in Wall’s first stint in Carrera Cup in the mid-2000s and then won a pair of Australian GT titles late in the decade.

Bathurst 12 Hour campaigns and class victories as well as a customer program running cars for other people, including a Lamborghini for Richard Gartner in Australian GT and, until recently, Brett Hobson’s Nissan GTR, keep the outfit busy.

As well as their current Carrera Cup program, maintaining the Wall families fleet of remarkable historic race cars, including the Supra, Corvette TransAm, HDT ‘Beast’ Torana Sports Sedan and ex-Pete Geoghegan Mustang, keep them busy.

With all that under his belt, asking if Wall relishes the competition seems almost redundant.

“Absolutely I do,” he says, though his explanation goes further than that by hinting that a move from the pressure cooker environment of Supercars has been only a good thing.

“Since leaving V8 Supercars we still get to itch the itch there doing some endurance stuff, but my love has always been driving Sports Cars, Porsches, whatever it may be. The opportunity came to race here and that was perfect for me – you have a clear slate, the same car as the guy at the very front or very back and it’s up to you and the people around you and that’s what makes it so good.”

After winning a race at the Clipsal 500 season opener earlier this year, Wall teamed with Shane Smollen to go on and win the third round of the Carrera Cup Championship at Phillip Island in May.

Remarkably, it took Wall 36 rounds to score his first overall victory after finishing second more than half-a-dozen times prior to finally breaking through. Ironically, that breakthrough win came without actually winning a race.

He then scored his first pole in Darwin a round later and backed that up at Sepang with another pole and two commanding victories, quickly followed by a narrow second in the combined ‘Pro’ race with the regulars from Porsche Carrera Cup Asia.

It has been a truly comprehensive performance.

“When you go overseas and they announced the calendar and said we’d be going to Sepang – and I’ve been here before – but just the fact of getting to load the car into a container, come to another country and race their countries best it’s never a bad thing!” he muses.

“I’m one to say if we can make it a double header somehow next time we come back I’d be up for it!

“It’s a mega thing to come over here. Not only do we get to enjoy driving on one of the best tracks in the world, all the crew and families that come along with you for the weekend have just as good a time coming to work on things overseas.”

And what of the championship? With three rounds to go it would be easy to assume a more than 100-point lead could see the team slip into conservation mode, but the truth is, as always, deeper than the numbers indicate.

The final three events at Sandown, Bathurst and Gold Coast, respectively, mean tough circuits, loads of unpredictability and the chance for things to swing away from the bright red and white Porsche all too quickly.

“We’re nowhere near talking championship yet,” Wall says.

“It’s nice to be leading it but there’s heaps of racing to come yet. I think you need to win races to win championships so at the moment we’re trying to do that and we’re trying to make our car as good as possible and if we do that, the rest will take care of itself.”

WORDS: Richard Craill
IMAGES: Mark Horsburgh / EDGE Photographics / Porsche Carrera Cup Australia.