HOBSON FASTEST IN CHALLENGE BATHURST SUPERSPRINTS
The Supersprint groups avoided rain at Challenge Bathurst on Thursday, but Friday was a different story. Heavy and continuous rain overnight and into Friday morning with the schedule delay to late morning.
Group GT’s Brett Hobson was the fastest overall in his new GWR-run Nissan Nismo GTR GT3. His best time was a 2min 05.141s lap, posted in Thursday’s second session after he was also quickest in the earlier morning outing.
“I gave myself a little scare this morning but all good as I build up confidence with the car,” Hobson said.
David Wall was next best in Paul Tresidder’s 2019 Bathurst 12 Hour-winning Porsche 911 GT3-R with a 2min 06.040. Third overall was Bart Mawer in the Mercedes Benz AMG GT3 (2min 06.120s) he shared with Vince Muriti while fourth was Kurt Kostecki (2min 06.460s) aboard an Audi R8 LMS EVO GT3 from the Melbourne Performance Centre.
Peter Hackett joined Jefri Ibrahim in the Triple 8 Mercedes for the fifth fastest. Adrian Deitz and Tony D’Alberto (Lamborghini Huracan) were sixth overall, with Dietz lucky a clash with Kostecki in session one over Skyline didn’t result in heavy wall contact.
Mike Bailey’s new Bentley Continental had Dylan O’Keeffe locked in for the co-driver role and they were seventh. Then followed Dimitri and Theo Koundouris (Audi) and Cameron Hill (Porsche 991.2 Carrera Cup Car) while the similarly mounted Aaron Love was tenth.
Behind them were Neale Muston (Radical SR8), Nick McBride and Simon Fallon in Porsches, and a host of Audis in the hands of Marc Cini, Marcel Zalloua, Matt Stoupas and Mark Rosser. The latter brought about a premature end to session one when he spun off in the Chase.
There were several rivers across sections of the track for the lone session on Day Two session where Muston was quickest to the limited runners. It was also curtailed when Pasquale Lucchitti crashed his Audi near the crest on Mountain Straight.
The other Group sessions were also rain-free on Thursday apart from the odd light sprinkle but not necessarily accident free. Paul Hadley rearranged the front of his new TA2 Chev Camaro in a familiarisation session. The BMW 325 of Daniel Ness was another to cop damage when it went in at the Dipper.
Dean Campbell (Mitsubishi EVO X) did some cosmetic damage when he went into the Griffin Bend tyres before Tyler Everingham’s Subaru WRX lunched its engine at the Chase.
In Group A Richard Perini set the pace in his Time Attack Ginetta G55 ahead of Andrew Hall, Jacque Jarjo, Matt Belford, Geoff Morgan, all in Porsches, and John Bowe in his TCM Holden Torana A9X.
Warwick Morris (Radical SR3 RSX) topped Group B ahead of Michael King (EVO X), Andrej Pavicevic (Nissan Skyline R34 GTR), Jason Wright (R34), and Andrew Richmond (Lotus Exige 350 Plus).
In Group C Jack Phelan (Porsche 991.2) was fastest in both outings, the second of which (the last for the day) was hit by rain midway through. Jonathan Wong (Toyota Supra) was next best ahead Michael Dunbar (Walkinshaw VL), Andre Nader (BMW M4 F82) and Gen Li (BMW M2 Competition).
The last afternoon sessions started off badly for Pawel Faber when he put his Honda Civic on its side in the McPhillamy Park sandtrap. The only change is fastest times was Todd Herring who posted Group C’s best at the end of the day.
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