Season 2024 of the GTWC Australia championship kicks off in earnest this weekend after the Bathurst 12 Hour kicked the season off in February. Round 2 takes the series to Phillip Island, with a refreshed entry list featuring nine entries across three marques in the Pro-Am category fighting for overall honours, seven cars fighting it out in the Am category, and an additional Trophy-class entry for older GT3 models.
This is a significant improvement from last year’s championship which saw 11 current-spec GT3 machines as part of a 21-car field at the season finale at Adelaide last November, with the grid on that occasion bolstered by Invitational and Trophy-class entries.
Pro-Am
The major headline from the off-season has been the arrival of Arise Racing and the Ferrari 296 GT3, in partnership with the Lance East group of Laurence Escalante.
Arise will be fielding two Ferrari 296 GT3s, featuring two high-profile driver combinations. Reigning GTWC Australia champion Liam Talbot pairs up with current Repco Supercars superstar Chaz Mostert in one car, while former Porsche factory driver Jaxon Evans joins young gun Elliot Schutte in the second car.
“It’s very humbling,” said Talbot on the prospect of driving for Arise. “A lovely gentleman by the name of Laurence Escalante, who’s very passionate about motorsport, decided that GT racing is for him. So they’ve set up a team to give it a red hot crack.
“Chaz Mostert’s no slouch. We’ve done some racing together. For me, he’s my number 1 choice, so I feel very lucky that he can dabble with GT as well as running his team [Method Motorsport in GT4] as well as Supercars.”
Mostert and Talbot most recently combined in the 2022 GTWC Australia season, taking a clean sweep of the opening round of the season. Jaxon Evans will be balancing his debut Supercars season for Brad Jones Racing with the Arise GT program, combining with Elliot Schutte, who is graduating from the Radical Australia championship, where he finished second last year.
Audi is represented by four cars in Pro-Am, three of which come from Melbourne Performance Centre. Heading up the challenge will be 2023 GTWC Australia Am champion, Brad Schumacher, who steps up to the Pro-Am class with Supercars driver Will Brown, in the Audi R8 LMS Evo II. Schumacher was the class of the Am category last year, comfortably winning the championship with a round to spare. Will Brown jumps across from Mercedes AMG, after helping Triple Eight to sixth place at the Bathurst 12 Hour earlier this year.
Also stepping up from a class championship is Renee Gracie, who graduates from the Trophy class to Pro-Am in a current spec Audi R8. She is joined by experienced campaigner Paul Stokell. Gracie impressed in Adelaide as she stepped up into current-gen machinery, and with three-time Australian Driver’s Champion Stokell alongside, this duo is sure to be in the mix as the season progresses.
Experienced Am Tim Miles returns to GTWC Australia after several seasons in Porsche Carrera Cup Australia, driving with New Zealand driver Brendon Leitch, who has raced in Super Trofeo, GTWC Europe, and most recently raced in the Asian Le Mans Series with Leipert Motorsport.
Also returning in an Audi is Mark Rosser, returning with BRM running the Audi R8 LMS Evo II. Rosser steps up to Pro-Am and will have former Formula 3 pilot Alex Peroni co-driving with him at Phillip Island. Peroni, from Tasmania, will be making his Australian circuit racing debut, after multiple seasons racing in Europe.
Mercedes brings three cars to the Pro-Am category, run by three different teams for the Silver Arrows. Triple Eight Race Engineering returns for a full season, with former Supercars driver Declan Fraser combining with 2017 Australian GT champion Peter Hackett. It’s a return to GTWC Australia for Hackett, who last raced in the series at Bathurst in 2022.
Making the change into a Mercedes is the Grove Racing father/son pairing of Stephen and Brendon Grove. After running Porsches for the previous three seasons, Grove Racing is making its Australian debut in the Mercedes, which they are running in select IGTC and international GT races around the world this year.
Rounding out the Pro-Am entry is Tigani Motorsport, with Jayden Ojeda joining Paul Lucchitti, who steps up from a Trophy-class Audi into the current GT3 spec. Ojeda impressed last season, driving for Harrolds Volante Rosso Mercedes, taking a victory at Phillip Island, and is coming into the event off the back of winning the Bathurst 6 Hour over Easter.
Am Class
The Am class features three Audis and four Mercedes with some very familiar names for the GTWC Australia featuring in the class.
Melbourne Performance Centre are running two cars, for long-time GT competitors Ash Samadi and Marc Cini. Incredibly for Cini, despite many years running the Hallmarc Audi R8 GT3, he has never raced the car at Phillip Island.
“The Am Class is very competitive, but also there’s a good layer of camaraderie,” said Cini to the GTWC Australia media.
Tigani Motorsports is also running an Audi, with Sergio Pires and Marcell Zalloua recombining to bring the colourful Valmont Racing Audi back onto the grid. The duo, driving with Brad Shiels and Luke Youlden, finished second in the Silver class at the Bathurst 12 Hour in February and will look to keep that momentum this weekend.
Alongside the Audi, Tigani Motorsport is also running a Mercedes AMG, driven by brothers James and Theo Koundouris, who swapped from Audi to Mercedes last season. They also enjoyed a positive Bathurst 12 Hour, finishing third in class with David Russell and Jonathon Webb.
Ram Racing with Garth Walden Racing returns in a Mercedes with Garth Walden once again partnering Mike Sheargold, with the pair looking to add an Am Champion trophy to go with third and second in the last two seasons.
Black Wolf Motorsport brings another Mercedes AMG to the Am class, for drivers Ben Schoots and Shane Woodman, who were drivers of the SIN R1 GT at the Bathurst 12 Hour in 2023.
The Am class is rounded out by experienced Tony Bates, who returns to the championship in a Mercedes with Ashley Seward Motorsport after a season away from the series.
Trophy
Trophy class, for older-spec GT3 machines, has downsized from last year, after both Paul Lucchitti and Renee Gracie have stepped up to Pro-Am for 2024. The sole entrant for this weekend’s outing at Phillip Island is Michael Bailey, driving an Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3.
The GTWC Australia Championship heads to Phillip Island this weekend, with the series joining the Shannons SpeedSeries for Sprint rounds at The Bend Motorsport Park, Queensland Raceway, Sydney Motorsport Park and Bathurst throughout the year.
Australian viewers can watch all races for free on channel 7’s streaming service 7+, with select races on Channel 7, while international viewers can watch via the Shannons Speedseries website.
Images courtesy of World Challenge Australia
