All eyes were on the sky at Highlands Motorsport Park this morning as Formula 1 driver Liam Lawson literally dropped in.
After arriving on the track by helicopter the race track star, and the first ambassador of the Tony Quinn foundation, signed autographs for fans before driving three hot laps in a V12-powered Aston Martin Vulcan Supercar — the only one in the southern hemisphere, and valued at $4.2 million when Highlands owner Tony Quinn bought it in 2016 — and 20 laps in a Lamborghini.
The event was to raise funds for breast cancer research after Highlands chief executive Josie Spillane lost her close friend, former Otago Daily Times journalist Louise Scott-Gallagher, to the disease earlier this year.
Craig Gallagher and their daughter Lily (2) were at the track for a “bittersweet” day.
While Lily was excited to see Santa and keen for some mini golf, Mr Gallagher said just over six months since Louise’s passing and it was nice to be doing some meaningful work for the Breast Cancer Foundation.
“Josie having known Louise well before I came on the scene, and such a dear friend of hers, the person that she is, that she’s been able to put on today . . . it’s been an incredible feat to pull off. To have Liam racing here today and raising so much money for the Breast Cancer Foundation is so impressive.”
Before he suited up Lawson, signed autographs for some of the hundreds of fans who began lining up several hours before the event began.
Helmets, photographs, caps and cans of Red Bull were all offered to the racing star for his signature.
The Hodges family, of Invercargill, had spent the night in Cromwell before hitting the motorsport park at 7am to queue for an autograph. Fraser (12) was thrilled to have his hero’s signature.
Third-year medical student Mia Gerrard, of Wānaka, had ridden her motorbike over and was delighted to have her helmet signed by Lawson.
She grew up watching F1 racing with her father and hoped eventually to be a doctor for one of the F1 teams, she said.
The most striking item offered for signing was an almost life-size cardboard replica of Lawson. Wānaka friends Eden Ford, Pieta Craig, Mercy Sunderland and Amelia Craig said they had acquired the treasured item from a pub in Melbourne and it was carried back to New Zealand in a cricket bag.