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MUNDIAL - GT - AUSTRALIA

Segunda, 21 Março 2022 05:39 | Actualizado em Quinta, 28 Março 2024 08:38

Mostert and Talbot take out opening race of Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS


The Audi pairing of Chaz Mostert and Liam Talbot have taken victory in the first race of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Powered by AWS season at Phillip Island.

Talbot took the lead early from pole position winner Brett Hobson in the Hobson Motorsport Nissan GT-R GT3 and this was further consolidated when Mostert took the wheel at the start of the pit window.It wasn’t plain sailing for Mostert as international GT ace Christopher Mies was closing during the final stages in reigning champion Yasser Shahin in another of the new Audi R8 LMS GT3 evo IIs.

In another close battle, Shane van Gisbergen in the Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes-AMG GT3 held off the C-Tech Laser Audi of David Reynolds to complete the podium. The latter received a penalty following a safety car infraction by co-driver Tony Bates.

Hobson led off the start, but an early safety car eradicated his lead as the GT Trophy Porsche 911 GT3 Cup Car driven by Eric Constantinidis hit the tyre wall exiting MG Corner.

Prior to this Hobson had lost the lead to Talbot and second to Shahin.

The pit stops occurred early for the frontrunners, though Hobson elected to continue, but fell back through the field to finish second in class behind last year’s winner Brad Hobson in his Audi.

There were some wild incidents including one for Am Class Audi driver Mark Rosser as he went wide entering the front straight and managed to not hit the outside tyre wall and the leaders slicing through lapped traffic also fluctuated the gap.

Garry Higgon and Paul Stokell won the Am Class in their KFC-supported Audi clear of the RAM Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3 shared by Mike Sheargold and Garth Waldon. Third was the sister KFC Audi of Matt Stoupas.

In GT Trophy, Vince Muriti in his Mercedes-AMG GT3 followed Schumacher and Hobson to complete the podium.

Sam Brabham and Ross Poulakis won GT4 in their Mercedes-AMG GT4 from Mark Griffith in a similar model and the Ginetta of Madeline Stewart.

Tomorrow’s Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Powered by AWS action continues with the second race at 1:45pm AEDT.

The Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Powered by AWS will be supported by an impressive array of racing categories, including the Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series, Turtle Wax Trans Am Series, the S5000 Australian Drivers’ Championship and plenty more.

CLICK HERE for tickets.

Anyone wishing to attend the event is reminded tickets will not be available for purchase at the gate. Tickets must be purchased via Eventbrite prior to entry. Purchasing your tickets in advance will save you time at the gate.

All of the action will be broadcast live and on-demand on Stan Sport, with midweek highlights on the Nine Network’s 9GEM channel.
 


QUOTES

Chaz Mostert

“Liam did a fantastic job and he was super quick out the gate," said Mostert.

"He gave me the car in the lead, and I just tried my hardest to keep the gap to (Christopher) Mies behind me. He’s a well known competitor and he's super fast in these cars so I wanted to make sure I gave the car back to Liam in the spot he gave it to me.

"I'm looking forward to tomorrow. The car was pretty good, but there's a lot of lapped traffic, so you gotta be on your toes out there.”

Liam Talbot

“It was a good race," said Talbot.

"I tried to get the Nissan off the start, maybe that was a bit ambitious because he had so much straight line speed, but we got a little bit of a gap and tried lap after lap to catch him.

"When his car fell off the cliff, we got super strong and got past him. With the safety car, there’s so much risk with a safety car restart but I just had so much fun out there and just actually getting the lead was very satisfying.

“Really big thanks to Chaz. He did a good job, the team have been doing 12 hour days for three weeks so without their support we wouldn’t be here, so a big thanks to everyone.”

Brad Schumacher

“The day didn’t start out how we would’ve liked it to," said Schumacher.

"I looked at the clock, it said 12 minutes until the race start so I nicked over to have my last minute toilet stop as I always do, because I don't like cruising around for an hour with a full bladder.

“When I came back, the cars were rolling out and unfortunately because we didn’t roll out in garage order we had to start from the pit lane.

"So I was spewing after qualifying in fifth obviously, but fortunately it didn’t the end result – we still took out the Trophy class win and sixth outright.”
TRACK SCHEDULE

Saturday, March 19
1:45pm-2:45pm Race 1

Sunday, March 20
1:45pm-2:45pm Race 2

STAN SPORT TV SCHEDULE

LIVE, AD-BREAK FREE & ON-DEMAND

Saturday, March 19
11:00am - 5:00pm

Sunday, March 20
11:00am - 5:00pm
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