Rookie Peter Major won the second race of the CAMS Australian GT Championship at the Adelaide Street Circuit in his Lamborghini R-EX.
Incredibly, Major only took possession his Lamborghini one week ago and had one chance to shake it down. The former targa competitor and Porsche racer had never driven a GT3 car prior in competition prior to this weekend’s action.
It was a hard fought win for Major who was battling hard with Roger Lago in his Lamborghini R-EX during the final third of the race.
After the pit stop cycle, Lago had established a lead of a few seconds, with Major having a clear track in second.
Major then pushed to close the gap and tried to pass Lago with about 10 minutes to go. His efforts were in vain and he dropped back.
With just a few minutes to go, he was able to mount another challenge. His first attempt to pass was thwarted by traffic but with three laps remaining, Major pushed his car to the inside at turn 9. He was able to pull the car up in time at the hairpin, making a clean pass for the lead.
He continued on to take his first Australian GT win in only his second race.
Lago would take second, the first Lamborghini 1-2 in the Australian GT Championship for 117 races, ahead of Race 1-winner Tony Bates who took third, some eight seconds behind with Liam Talbot fourth.
The race was not without incident with the safety car after both the BMW Team SRM and Ah Apartments Audi suffering mechanical faults on track. While both would be able to make it back to the pits, neither would make the checkered flag.
The safety car would spell disaster for the professional entries with Come Ledagar having taken an early lead. His pitstop time would be some 30 seconds longer than the AM drivers.
THe time behind the safety car ate into his ability to build a lead and while he reeled off fast laps, he was only able to build a seven second gap. He and codriver (Fraser Ross), would finish seventh.
Other pro drivers like Ash Walsh (with James Koundouris) and Kevin van der Linde (with Geoff Emery) would suffer. Walsh set the fastest lap of 1:19.810 – the only car to dip into the 1:19s.
It was a difficult race for the Jamec Pem Audi squad with both the #74 and #75 entries being tangled up with incidents while trying to pass other cars. One incident came at the start of the race at turn 9 and the other came near the end of the race at the final corner.
Equally Scott Taylor in his Mercedes seemed to suffer breaking problems, locking up several times and having to use the escape road.
The biggest hit of the race was reserved for Justin McMillen in his Lamborghini who lost the rear of the car in the first turn chicane. He hit the outside wall with some force and while the safety car didn’t come out, the car suffered considerable damage. Thankfully McMillen emerged unscathed.
The final race of the weekend takes place on Sunday at 9:20am local time.
