News
Tander on Top in Friday Practice
Garth Tander has impressed on his return to Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS, setting the fastest combined time of Friday practice at Queensland Raceway.
The 2007 Supercars champion posted a 1m 08.4643s late in this afternoon’s second practice session, gapping the rest of the seventeen car field by over four tenths of a second.
The Shannons Audi Tander will share with Pro-Am championship leader Liam Talbot was fast all day, finishing third in the morning session, and is shaping up as the car to beat this weekend.
The morning session was topped by the Harrolds Racing / Volante Rosso Motorsport Mercedes of Ross Poulakis and Jayden Ojeda, thanks to a 1m 08.5048s set by Ojeda.
They bested the Jamec Racing Audi of Geoff Emery and Max Hofer by just a tenth of a second, the Austrian aiming to take the Pro-Am championship lead back from Talbot.
Both of the Harrolds Racing Mercedes were firmly in the top five, with the Christos Batzios/Josh Hunt entry fourth. ahead of the Am Class leading Audi of Matt Stoupas and Paul Stokell for KFC.
The second session of the day also looked set to run green throughout the entire forty five minute session, however Renee Gracie brought out the red flags with just over ten minutes to go after finding trouble in her GT3 Trophy Audi R8 LMS Ultra.
The session went green again with just over four minutes left to run, allowing for a final burst of fast lap times.
Tander laid down his marker on his final lap, beating the improved Triple Eight Race Engineering / JMR Mercedes of Prince Abu Bakar Ibrahim/Jamie Whincup and Prince Jefri Ibrahim/Broc Feeney respectively.
The Emery/Hofer Audi was fourth in the afternoon session, with the Poulakis/Ojeda Mercedes that had topped the morning session rounding out the top five.
The Stoupas/Stokell KFC Audi once again topped the Am Class in seventh outright, whilst Renee Gracie topped both sessions in GT3 Trophy despite her late incident in the afternoon session.
The Invitational Class was topped by the MARC GT of Geoff Taunton and Daniel Jilesen in both sessions.
Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS returns to the track tomorrow morning at 10am for qualifying, before the first race of the weekend goes green at 2:55pm.
Race One will be broadcast live, ad-break free, and on demand on Stan Sport, and will also be broadcast live on free-to-air television via 9Go.