AUDI INTERNATIONAL ACES TO RACE IN ADELAIDE
Melbourne Performance Centre has called up some Audi Sport factory stars to support its Adelaide assault for the Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS title season finale.
Christopher Mies and Kelvin van der Linde will join the team for the first GT race on the streets of Adelaide since 2017.
The season will conclude next weekend and favourite to take a second championship in succession is MPC’s lead contender Yasser Shahin, who holds an 11-point margin back to Mercedes-AMG rival Prince Jefri Ibrahim of Triple Eight Race Engineering.
Shahin was in search of a new co-driver with Garth Tander busy on TV duties and will rekindle his successful partnership with Mies and hopes the good memories can push him over the line.
The duo were victorious at the Bathurst season finale last year, before winning a race at the opening event at Phillip Island back in March.
Mies is also a former GT Australia champion and has had success in Adelaide, scoring pole to spark his run towards the 2016 title.
His fellow Audi Sport factory driver van der Linde can also lay claim to an Adelaide pole, achieving the feat a year later when he partnered with Geoff Emery for much of his championship-winning campaign in 2017.
The South African has since represented Audi in GT competition across the world, including the Intercontinental GT Challenge and recently the DTM.
Van der Linde will join Tony Bates in the C-Tech Laser Audi as he aims to climb further up the Pro-Am standings after missing The Bend round.
Melbourne Performance Centre’s Troy Russell said the international drivers bring plenty of class to the team.
“The main reason we have the factory drivers coming over is Yasser has mainly had Garth Tander partner him, but he has TV commitments, so then we looked further afield and Christopher Mies was an obvious choice,” said Russell.
“Christopher fits in with the team, he’s been to Adelaide and he’s a good fit with Yasser.
“Tony (Bates) is a bit the same as he’s had David Reynolds and Cameron Waters do a bit with him all year, but they’ve got their Supercars commitments, so again we searched overseas for drivers. Kelvin has been here as well and they both love coming to Australia, so it was an easy sell and they both are looking forward to it.
“We know are drivers are in safe hands and it’s great that we can bring guys of this calibre to the category and to the return of the Adelaide street track event.”
For the first time this season, the Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS will contest three 40-minute races across the weekend to conclude the 2022 campaign.
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