Klark Quinn took his first win of the Australian GT season at the fifth round of the Championship at the Townsville street circuit. The weekend’s action saw the Australian GT Sprint Series in action with two 60 minute races on the 2.8km track.
Race 1
The first race was under warm and sunny conditions, exactly what was expected at Townsville, a track situated on the coast in mid-north Queensland. And it was Klark Quinn who showed the fans why he is a twice champion in the series.
Having qualified fifth, he made a storming start to make up a vital position. He played a superb tactical game to remain within striking distance of the leaders and to utilise his shorter compulsory pit stop time.
In essence, he was racing the Jamec Pem Audi of Chris Mies and Tony Bates, who had superior pace but due to Mies’ driving ranking, would have a longer pitstop.
Mies was fully aware of his obligation to pull out a gap and proceeded to smash the lap record, putting in a lap time of 1:11.987, more than half a second quicker than anyone else and 0.7sec quicker than the existing lap record.
After Mies and Quinn made their respective pitstops, it looked like Mies had done enough, Bates was in the car and in the lead. Quinn would now have to win it on track.
After the pitstops, Quinn was lapping comfortable and consistently in the 1:13s while Bates was wavering between the 1:14s and 1:15s – allowing Quinn to shut down the gap.
With 11 laps to run, Quinn made his move and took the lead, something he would hold onto for the rest of the race, eventually finishing 11 seconds up on Bates at the flag.
The race went green for the full 60 minutes, allowing the parity to play out as intended.
This showed that Lago, with his third placed Lamborghini still has pace. Fourth was Nathan Morcom in the Tekno McLaren.
Race 2
The second race didn’t have the purity of the first, but nevertheless was still dramatic, with Tony Walls being handed the win after a post-race penalty for Quinn.
It was punctuated early by the 180km/h crash for Ricky Capo’s BMW Z4 GT3, a victim of another Pirelli tyre failure. Capo was admitted to hospital but has been given the all clear. It was the most spectacular tyre failure of the weekend, a trend that is certainly worrying for Pirelli, after their series of high speed failures at the previous Phillip Island round.
But the yellow flag period bringing the field closer together, the battle at the front soon emerged between race 1 winner, Klark Quinn and Tony Walls, both in McLarens.
Walls took control of the race and held a healthy lead after the pit stop sequence. However, Quinn, on form, was charging down, cutting into the lead. Quinn’s lap time were consistently in the 1:13s and 0.5sec faster than Walls.
He would cut the gap down and the fight for the lead would go right to the final lap.
Walls would lead into the last lap with Quinn on his tail.
Crucially, there was a yellow flag for a Simon Ellingham’s spun Audi. The turn 11 passing zone would be under yellow.
It would also be where Quinn got a run on Walls, where Walls would run a little wide, where Quinn would make a pass.
So Quinn took the lead and the flag but was judged to have passed under yellow flag conditions, handing him 25 second penalty applied post race, dropping him to seventh.
A little anti-climatic but the race was a thriller and allowed Walls to take a deserved second career win in the Australian GT Championship.
Lago’s strong weekend continued as he took second, with Craig Baird/Scott Taylor taking third in their Mercedes AMG GT3.
Chris Mies and Tony Bates would take fifth with Nathan Morcom taking 11th.
Klark Quinn now holds a slender Championship lead over Morcom with just one round remaining. The final round will take place at New Zealand’s Highlands Park in November.
