Yasser Shahin and Garth Tander driving the #777 The Bend Motorsport Park Audi R8 LMS have taken victory in today’s second race at The Bend for round 3 of the GT World Challenge Australia. The pair fought hard, making a pass for the lead in both halves of the race, to take their fourth overall victory and 5th in Pro-Am out of the 6 race season so far.
Their win comes in spite of a 5 second penalty for an unsafe pit release, after making contact with the #24 Bostik Audi R8 LMS during the pit stop.
Second place was the Grove Racing father-son duo of Stephen and Brendan Grove in the #4 Porsche 911, who lead for the majority of the race. Third place went to the #888 Triple 8 Race Engineering pair of Prince Jefri Ibrahim and Broc Feeney.
It was a cracking start from both drivers on the second row, with Brendan Grove and Garth Tander splitting Broc Feeney and Dylan O’Keefe in the #24 Bostik Audi to make it 4 wide into turn 1. It was Grove in the Porsche who came out on top, taking the lead with Tander and Feeney slotting in behind. The trio stretched out the lead to the chasing pack, with the top Trophy class runner Paul Stokell in the #124 KFC Audi R8 sitting in fourth, ahead of O’Keefe.
With the pit window looming, Tander made an aggressive move for the lead between turns 2 and 3, forcing the Audi through. He then set about gaining as much of an advantage as possible, attempting to offset the 15 second success adjustment in the pit stop for winning yesterday’s pro-am race, while the Groves had no additional time to take in the pits.
Tander built a 3 second lead ahead of the pit stops, which saw the leading trio plus O’Keefe dive in at the same time. It would be the Groves, now with Stephen behind the wheel, that emerged first, with a 12 second lead over Prince Jefri Ibrahim in the #888 Triple 8 Race Engineering Mercedes AMG, who only had a 10 second success adjustment in their pit stop.
There was drama further back, with the #777 The Bend Motorsport Park Audi being released into the path of the #24 Bostik Audi, causing contact in the pit lane. Interestingly, the #24 Bostik Audi were pinged for undercutting the minimum pit stop time, earning them a drive through penalty, which dropped Tony Bates from contention.
With the possibility of a post-race penalty looming, Yasser Shahin in the #777 The Bend Motorsport Park Audi R8 set about first reeling in Prince Jefri Ibrahim, making short work of the Mercedes AMG with a commanding move through turns 14 and 15. He then aimed his sights on Stephen Grove, cutting down a 10 second advantage in chunks, before making the pass for the lead at turn 1 with 8 minutes left.
Shahin kept the pace high, stretching to a 10 second lead come the race end, which was enough to offset a 5-second post-race penalty for the pit lane contact, securing victory for the team. Stephen Grove brought the #4 Porsche home comfortably in third place, with Prince Ibrahim and Broc Feeney finishing third.
The Trophy class was controlled by Brad Schumacher in the #55 Schumacher Motorsport Audi R8. Schumacher was the class of the field, finishing 40 seconds ahead of the #99 Industrie Mercedes AMG of Nick Kelly, with the #23 KFC Audi R8 of Matt Stoupas rounding out the podium. Yesterday’s overall winner, Brett Hobson in the #96 Hobson Motorsport Nissan GTR, was unfortunately out of the running early on with a gearbox issue forcing his retirement.
Andrew Macpherson and Ben Porter made it a perfect weekend for the #51 Imak Kwikmit Lamborghini Huracan in the Am class, taking the win from the #91 Canon Foods Audi of Arthur Abrahams.
Garth Tander: “It’s a tough race, they’re never easy but I got a good start, but I didn’t realise Brenton had got such a good start on the other side of me so it was really hard for me to get past him,” said Tander.
“But I managed to use some lapped traffic and got by which opened a small gap.
“I knew we needed a bigger gap before the pit stop because of our pitstop times from yesterday’s race. Then Yasser jumped in and did what he does! Just mowed them down and did a really good job.
“We’ve been struggling with the car this weekend being not quite right. It still wasn’t right in the race but we got a lot better, and Yasser did an awesome job. Yeah, there was a little bit of contact in pit lane between teammates but hey, that’s racing!”
Yasser Shahin: “He did an amazing job, the way he got off the line I just didn’t expect him to hold P2 let alone take P1 from those guys,” said Shahin.”The Porsche is just such a great car and they’re doing a great job with it but every second of the lead he gave me the car was one less second I had to catch up.
“Garth is right though, we’ve been struggling with the car all weekend but his car knowledge and my track knowledge here really paid dividends. I drove the wheels off it for the first half and then it was just managing it because it was getting quite greasy out there.”
The SRO GT World Challenge Australia championship resumes in September, with the final sprint round at Sandown Raceway as part of the Shannons Motorsport Australia Championships on Sep 17-19. The 6-round season will then conclude with two endurance events, returning to The Bend in October, and finishing at the Bathurst International in November.
Pics copyright Daniel Kalisz
