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Mercedes closes in, but Audi still on top in the west
Christopher Mies continued his perfect start to the weekend in Perth by improving on his earlier benchmark in Practice 2 to hold the ascendency at the start of Round 2 for the Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS.
Reuniting with JAMEC Racing and Geoff Emery, Mies set a 53.538s to edge Richie Stanaway in the lead Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes-AMG GT3 he will drive alongside Prince Jefri Ibrahim by 0.121s.
Jamie Whincup made it two Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes-AMG GT3s in the top three as he again partners Prince Abu Bakar Ibrahim.
Current series leaders Liam Talbot and Max Hofer were fourth in the Shannons Insurance Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo2 from Ross Poulakis teaming this weekend with GT debutant Jayden Ojeda in the Harrolds Volante Rosso Motorsport.
Glen Wood led most of the session in the M Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3 he’ll share with owner Justin McMillan, but ended it sixth ahead of reigning dual series winner Yasser Shahin and Garnet Patterson driving the EMA Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3R after an off for the former.
Tony Bates and Jordan Love followed in eighth driving the Makita Mercedes-AMG GT3 from lead Am Class contender RAM Motorsport in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 shared by Michael Sheargold and Garth Walden.
Brad Schumacher completed the top 10 in the Fuchs Audi, swapping position with Matt Stoupas and Paul Stokell in the KFC example.
Michael Kokkinos for Launch Racing/MC Labour, Michael Bailey and Brett Hobson for GWR Australia, and Ash Samadi completed the Pro-Am/Am fields.
Renee Gracie continued her improvement in the OnlyFans Audi R8 LMS GT3 Ultra, while Mark Griffith fixed his problem from Practice 1 to complete significant running ahead of qualifying.
The usual two segment qualifying session will take place tomorrow morning at 8:50am AWST or 10:50am AEST.