The second round of the 2014 Australian GT Championship presented by Pirelli was a thrilling affair with the race not being settled until the dying minutes of the race.
Phillip Island played host to the race which was slated to be a 101 lap endurance race but time restrictions saw the race end after 82 laps or the maximum allowed time of 2 hours 15 minutes.
The endurance race drew a variety of drivers from other series V8 Supercar Champion Garth Tander and Porsche Carrera Cup regulars Craig Baird, Warren Luff and Sam Power. The race was being run as part of a super-endurance weekend at Phillip Island that also saw the Australian Manufactures Championship and Porsche Carrera Cup take place – with many drivers pulling double duty.
This would have a greater impact on the Australian GT Championship than many expected. Warren Luff was competing with Steve McLaughlan in the Trophy Class Jamec Pem Racing Audi R8 LMS. Luff had put the car on pole with a stunning 1:38.840, edging out the clear favourites of Erebus Racing Mercedes of Richard Muscat and Jack Le Brocq.
The Carrera Cup race was held before the Australian GT race and Luff was competing in both. Luff was involved in a heavy accident in that race that ruled him out of the GT race. McLaughlan was unable to find a suitable replacement and while he would still compete, he would not be eligible for points.
Effectively, the pole winner was eliminated before the race began.
The rest of the grid would be ruled by the compulsory pitstops and driver time. Teams were to make two compulsory pit stops the 30-minute and 120-minute mark of the race. The Pro drivers were also restricted to a maximum of 55% of race distance behind the wheel – of the original 101 lap distance. Teams would also be faced with the usual longer pit stop times for those who qualified higher on the grid.
Drivers like Roger Lago played the strategy game to get a shorter pitstop time but most went flat out.
Lago’s strategy game would not be able to be played out as he was eliminated in a three car crash 20 laps into the race. Lago, Dean Koutsoumidis and Keith Kassulke would be eliminated on the spot.
Effectively Koutsoumidis was eliminated when Lago went to lap Kassulke and lost contol. Simply put by Koutsoumidis – “what can you say? Right place at the wrong time.”
The ensuing safety car allowed many teams to put their slower driver in behind the wheel but it also gave an advantage to those with shorter pitstops.
The race went green on lap 36 with John Magro – a regular F3 runner, leading the race in an Audi R8 LMS with the Erebus Mercedes SLS just behind.
A battle went on until lap 45 when Magro pitted, allowing Muscat to take the lead and build up a lead before the second round of pitstops.
After the pitstop sequence, Jack Le Brocq had taken over the Erebus Mercedes and had a substantial lead over the Maranello Ferrari of John Bowe and Aston Martin of Garth Tander.
Tander had taken over from Tony Quinn who had expected that he didn’t do enough to put Tander in a race winning position.
Tander though showed the form that made him a V8 Champion reeling in the Ferrari and passing it by lap 70 – giving him 12 laps to haul in the then 15 second gap to the Mercedes.
“I’d charged to catch JB and though ah well, the Mercedes is too far up the road to catch, second is pretty good, then the boys told me he was just 15-seconds away and a lot slower than we were so I thought I’d give it a go,” Tander said.
By lap 70 it was known that the race would run to time, not to the lap distance with the checkered flag to fall at 5:00pm.
Tander would haul in the Mercedes at a rate of up to 2.5 seconds a lap and with just five mintues to go would box in Le Brocq behind a backmaker to make the pass on the front straight. He would pull out a small lead to take the win.
“I just wanted to beat JB [Bowe]. We were joking before the race because their pitstop time was shorter than ours so I knew he’d be in front of me, so to beat JB was the main priority, anything other than that was a bonus. When I got past JB the boys told me that the Merc was only 15 seconds up the road, then the gap came down and down and down, then I could see it, then the red mist came on and away we went,” Tander said.
As it turned out the Mercedes had been suffering issues through the race, first with muck on the tyres and then late in the race with a dead dash. Le Brocq would be more concerned with finishing than holding off Tander – a wise choice that allowed Muscat to build on his Championship lead.
“We came into the weekend with the plan to get pole position and take the win. In qualifying I’d never been in the wet before at Phillip Island, and never in this car. We had a good couple of stints and then Jack put in a mature drive at the end to let Garth go, because he was pretty quick at the end, so I’m happy with second a chance to extend my points lead,” Muscat said after the race.
In the end the Maranello Ferrari of John Bowe and Peter Edwards would get third. Defending Champion Klark Quinn would finish fifth with Craig Baird.
Theo Kondouris and Sam Power would take out the GT Trophy class in a Porsche 997 Cup S with Nathan Antunes and Rod Salmon’s Audi taking second. Rod Salmon had planned on running a new car this year but it was destroyed in a heavy accident in the Bathurst 12 Hour.
The MotorSchool Porsche of Ben and George Foessel took out the GT Challenge Class with Mark Griffith and Karl Reindler’s Ginetta G50 GT4 taking out the GT Sports class.
The next round takes place at Townsville as the GT Championship supports the V8 Supercar Championship. They return to a sprint race format with dual 40 minute races on the street track.
Sam Tickell
Pic courtesy of & copyright to Shannons Nationals/Nathan Wong
