Liam Talbot and Chaz Mostert have taken the 2024 Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Pro-Am Championship in the #1 Arise Racing Ferrari after an incredible run from the back of the field to the podium in the final race of the season.
Mostert and Talbot were measured in their approach, navigating some nervous moments as they both moved through the racing pack.
The equation was simple for the #1 Ferrari: Score points, and the championship would be sealed. Not only did they manage that; they also finished ahead of the #87 Shaw and Partners Audi, who were the only other team still in the championship hunt.
The race honours came down to the wire, with a four-car battle late in the race for the spoils. The group was headed by the #8 Arise Racing Ferrari of Elliot Schutte, who had a 5-second penalty for an unsafe release.
Right on his tail, the battle for what was the effective podium was hot. Mark Rosser in the #81 ACM Finance Audi was holding off Peter Hackett’s #888 Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes AMG through the full final stint, with Talbot closing in on the leading trio in the final stages.
The battle was energised on the final lap as the lead group approached traffic over the top, with Schutte almost making contact with Trophy-class leading Stephen Coe on the hump at McPhillamy, forcing the group to scatter to navigate the slower Ferrari 458.
The leaders managed to sneak past over Skyline with the battle going all the way down to the finish line. Schutte crossed the line first, but with the 5-second penalty, dropped to 4th place. Rosser held off Hackett in a barnstormer of a final stint, and the champion elect, the #1 Arise Racing Ferrari with Liam Talbot, crossed the line third to take an incredible podium.
Talbot and Mostert’s charge through the field was helped by an early Safety Car to recover the stranded Ash Samadi #22 Melbourne Performance Centre Audi, after Samadi spun at Reid Park and hit the wall at the Metal Grate.
The 12 minute interruption rebunched the field after Mostert had already passed through the Trophy- and Am-class field, giving him a chance to start working into the points positions. Soon, Mostert was on the tail of Will Brown in the #87 Shaw and Partners Audi, who had fallen down the field to 7th in the opening melees.
Brown tried to move past Brenton Grove at the chase, but the #4 Grove Racing Mercedes fought back, forcing a side-by-side run into the final corner. Mostert seized the opportunity as Brown and Grove slowed each other, grabbing both on the entry to Hell Corner to move up to 6th place.
Out in front, Brendon Leitch pulled out to a 5-second lead to overcome the 5 seconds of additional pit time he would need for the #7 Dayle ITM’s Audi in Race 1 yesterday. It was chaos in the lane when the pit window finally opened, with the top 8 cars jumping into the lane at the same time.
Miles returned the #7 Audi to the lead of the race, with the #8 Arise Racing Ferrari just squeezing out ahead of the #81 ACM Finance Audi.
However, both would end up feeling the steward’s wrath – the #7 Audi was slapped with a Drive Through Penalty for breaching their minimum pit stop time, while the #8 Ferrari was given a 5 second penalty for an unsafe release. It was a bitter pill for the #7 Dayle ITM duo, who dropped down to 9th after being the dominant force across both stints during the race.
The top 5 was completed by the #181 OnlyFans Audi, followed by the #87 Shaw and Partners Audi of Will Brown and Brad Schumacher. The #87 needed to win to have any chance of taking the championship, and a 6th-place finish is a disappointing finish to their campaign.
Am-class was won by Sergio Pires in the #44 Valmont Racing Audi, who completed a sweep for the round, with the Am-Championship winning #45 RAM Motorsport/GWR Australia Mercedes one position behind.
Liam Talbot joins David Wall, Mark Eddy and Yasser Shahin as two-time winners of the Australian GT championship, and the first to win back-to-back in two different cars, after winning in the Audi R8 last season.
The win for the Ferrari 296 GT breaks a 6-season Audi R8 winning streak, and is Ferrari’s first championship in Australia since 2007, where the late Allan Simonsen took the championship driving a Ferrari 360 GT and F430.
The Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia will return next year under the SRO banner, with the first round on April 4-6 at Phillip Island.
Image courtesy of GT World Challenge Australia
