Liam Talbot and Fraser Ross have taken victory in an incident-packed finale for the GTWC Australia championship. The pair of drivers in the #65 Coin Spot Audi R8 running clean races to win by 4 seconds over Brett Hobson in the #96 Hobson Motorsport Nissan Nismo GT3, who took Trophy class honours. Third place went to Yasser Shahin and Christopher Mies in the #777 The Bend Motorsport Park Audi, who started from the back of the grid after Mies missed qualifying on Wednesday due to hotel quarantine procedures. Am was won by Marc Cini in the #9 Hallmarc Audi, who finished in 9th overall.
It was Brenton Grove in the #4 Grove Racing Porsche who lead the field away from the front row, building a gap over Peter Hackett in the #888 Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes AMG. After starting from the back of the field, Christopher Mies moved up to 6th by the end of the second lap, with Roberto Mehri in the #17 What Do You Meme Audi moving through the field behind him.
An incident for Hackett at McPhillamy brought out the safety car 10 minutes into the race, with the AMG parked backwards on the apex of the fast sweeper at the top of the mountain. Replays showed Hackett sliding through Metal Grate, struggling to catch the car, before the overcorrection saw the front right fire into the outside wall, before spinning across the circuit.
On the restart there was more drama; Ben Porter in the #51 Imak Kwikmit Porsche had a big oversteer moment at Metal Grate, tagging the outside wall, and sliding back across the circuit directly into the path of Theo Koundouris in the #69 Supabarn Audi. Both cars had significant damage, with the #69 a particular sorry case after ending yesterday’s race in the gravel trap after contact.
The second safety car period saw the whole field pit, resulting in a mixed grid due to the various success penalties applied during the pit stop. The order after the stops saw the Groves hold the lead, ahead of Am-class Marc Cini in the #9 Hallmarc Audi, ahead of Talbot in the #65 Coin Spot Audi, and yesterday’s winner Yasser Shahin in the #777 The Bend Motorsport Park Audi down in 7th. Talbot made short work of Cini on the restart, jumping into second and straight onto Steve Grove’s tail, as the rest of the field were backed up behind the Am-class runners in Cini and the #222 Porsche of Scott Taylor.
Brett Hobson in the #96 Hobson Motorsport Nissan Nismo GT3 was the first to process the traffic, wrapping up Shahin in the process, and set about chasing down the two leaders. Shahin made his move into fourth a lap later, just as Talbot made the move for the lead at the Chase, putting the #65 Audi ahead of the #4 Grove Porsche. Hobson then caught the back of the Porsche, making a move down Conrod Straight to take second place. The gap between Talbot and Hobson only 1.6 seconds with 15 minutes remaining.
Hobson made small inroads into the gap, bringing it to as low as 1.2 seconds, before getting caught up behind Mark Griffiths in the #19 Daimler Trucks Mercedes GT4 on the exit of Reid Park, dropping 2 seconds to Talbot, which was enough for Talbot to hold on and win the race.
Shahin managed to overhaul Grove through the Elbow to take third, while Mark Rosser rounded out the top 5. An impressive run from Michael Bailey in the #38 Trading Garage Aston Martin saw him finish second in the Trophy class and 6th overall, ahead of Trophy class champion Brad Schumacher in the #55 Schumacher Motorsport Audi R8.
