Race Report - GT3 Cup Challenge Round 2 - Mallala

Round 2 of the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Australia saw us head south to the capital city of South Australia, in Adelaide. One of the first English settlements from the Aussie pioneers to be developed as a metropolitan city, Adelaide has been the home of Formula 1 for a decade and the Clipsal 500 which includes Australia GT, Porsche Carrera Cup and V8 Supercars

The Shannons Nationals round was one of mixed emotions for me. Practice on Friday saw us off to a flying start, posting positions of 8th and 6th quickest overall in practice and displaying once again that we have been able to build a little consistency in our new found pace of the car. It was an extremely encouraging day.'

Saturday morning practice was more of the same thing as we went off to a flying start and once again posting a time 6th quickest on the time sheets.

Qualifying was done almost midday as the track was starting to warm up. Prior to this session, I had done a quickest lap of 1.12.3 as it was a chilling weekend. Though qualifying was a different story. The circuit was seriously quicker, and had gripped up massively as the braking points had moved a little deeper. The team strapped on a new set of rubber and off we went setting a fastest lap on our first flying lap at 1.10.3. Unfortunately, we stayed out there trying to improve the time throughout the session, even using the other 2 new tyros we had left on the loaded side. (In Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Australia, only six new tyros are allowed to be used during a race weekend.) Of course looking back, we should've just parked the car, but we thought we could go quicker. Things just didn't work out in the end.

Race 1 came on Saturday afternoon, for a total of 45 laps and an eventual 56 minutes. For much of the first part of the race, I was fighting alongside Terry Knight as we held good pace and matched each other often lap for lap. Though on lap 19, a horrific accident took place that saw Trende spin hundreds of metros at extremely high pace and collect Kingsley and Knight on turn 5 apex. It just destroyed the poor blokes in the corner and that brought the safety car out.

Under safety car for six laps, things looked better as Kingsley finally woke up from a short break from the conscious world. Thumbs up from Kingsley on the trackside to the circulating race cars under safety and the race went to green again.

After the incident, I was up to 4th overall and building a cap to 5th and 6th place held by Goodacre and Wong. What was next I was not prepared for.

Car number 71 Dean who is actually a pretty good fella was coming up on the list of cars to lap some six laps from the end. He blocked me for 2 laps, with the rest of the train catching up the lead I had built on them and we were all in a fight once again. We fought and I was lightly tapped, taking apart my rear bumper. Due to this tap, I was called into the pits and dropped from 4th to 17th, pretty much ending any chance at getting points in the race.

In the end, we ended up at 15th.

Race 2 saw us start from 15th on the corner of the pit straight on Sunday morning, rocketing off to a good start and passing several cars in the first few laps. Once I was in 10th place, the two ahead of me were my teammate John and Morriss. These two were not going to be so easy to pass. I stayed on them a few laps as they fought each other for 8th place and I thought perhaps someone could make a mistake.  

On the entry of turn 5, Morriss made his move and I decided to follow him through and accidentally tapped my teammate John. It was accidental but still not the best thing to do. 2 laps later, Morriss went wide at the same corner and I settled in for 8th place.

Race 3 saw few dramas, finishing in 6th and claiming valuable points for the weekend after a dismal race 1 result in 15th. The DNF has also seen us slip down to 6th in the championship trailing Goodacra by 3 points in 5th and a 9 point gap to Phil Morriss and Terry Knight in equal 3rd.