Brad Schumacher and Will Brown took victory today in the Shaw and Partners/Kelso Electrical #87 Audi to send the GTWC Australia championship down to the final race of the season tomorrow.
Needing to win to keep the championship alive, Schumacher kept close enough to Arise Racing’s Liam Talbot in the #1 Ferrari 296 ahead of the pit stops, with the required longer pit stop for the Ferrari crew dropping Mostert behind Brown after the stops.
Third place went to the Dayle ITM pair of Brendon Leitch and Tim Miles in the #7 Audi, only 3 seconds away from the battle for the lead.
Earlier in the day, Arise Racing took both poles for the weekend, and with it, the bonus points. However, the #1 was relegated to the back of the field for race 2 tomorrow after Mostert’s pole lap – a blistering 2:00.9 – was found to have occurred with excess boost pressure in the Ferrari. This made the championship equation a simple one; if the #1 finished ahead of the #87, the #1 would win the championship.
The race started in peculiar circumstances, with a circuit-wide timing system glitch bringing out a red-flag while on the warm-up lap. After a 12-minute delay, with the clock already ticking, the race was finally restarted under safety car, with Talbot leading away Paul Stokell in the #181 OnlyFans Audi from the head of the field. The pair would make great pace up front, breaking out to an 8-second lead, with Talbot holding off Stokell in the run into the stops.
With the Am-class field pitting earlier, the leading pair encountered traffic just ahead of the pit stops. Talbot and Stokell got caught behind Marc Cini and James Koundouris as the #9 Hallmarc Audi and #47 Supabarn Mercedes battled out of the pits, cutting the 8-second advantage over Brad Schumacher’s #87 Audi down to 4 seconds.
This proved pivotal to the result, with the Shaw and Partners/Kelso Electrical #87 Audi jumping the #1 Arise Racing Ferrari in the pit stops, assisted by the enforced longer stop for the #1 after their podium result at the last round of the series.
Brown was able to quickly chase down and pass Renee Gracie in the #181 OnlyFans Audi for the lead, and then never looked in trouble as he crossed the line to win the race in the #87 Audi. Mostert took home second, with Leitch just behind in the #7 Audi. The top 5 was rounded out by the #81 Team BRM Audi of Rosser and Peroni, followed by the Grove Racing #4 of Brenton and Stephen Grove.
Winning the Am category was the #44 Valmont Racing Audi of Sergio Pires, finishing in 10th overall, while the #45 pairing of Garth Walden and Mike Sheargold took home 12th place in the RAM Motorsport/GWR Australia Mercedes, and in the process, took out the Am-Class Championship.
Sheargold and Walden only had to finish ahead of the #47 Supabarn Mercedes to claim the championship, and after the #47 pulled into the lane in limp mode after overheating with only 10 minutes left, the #45 pair was able to cruise home to seal the championship.
There was one further retirement; the #56 Ferrari 458 of Stephen Coe was retired in the garage after an incident through the high-speed kink at The Chase. The car spun into the outside wall, then across the track and across the kerb. Coe managed to limp the 458 back to the pits, but the car was unable to finish.
With the #87 winning the race today, the championship is still up for grabs. The gap is 24 points, with 25 points for a race win.
Schumacher and Brown in the #87 will have to overcome the maximum 15 seconds of additional pit stop time after their win today in order to win the race, which they must do if they are to win the championship, while the #1 Arise Racing Ferrari only needs to score points in order to seal the crown.
However, the #1 will be starting from the tail of the field tomorrow, and anything can happen.
Image courtesy of GT World Challenge Australia
