Mawer Porsche weapon smashes World Time Attack

Once again the Yokohama World Time Attack Challenge was a hit, with drivers, teams, competitors and fans coming from all over the world to take on Sydney Motorsport Park.

As is the custom of the unique event, stunning and ferociously fast modified machines flew around the famous NSW circuit across three big days of action.

Whilst many new vehicles turned heads, a familiar one stole the show once again.

For a record fifth time in a row, the RP968 won the Yokohama World Time Attack Challenge and achieved the feat in convincing style with Barton Mawer again behind the wheel.

Mawer, incredibly, broke his own lap record on each day, before eventually stopping the clock at 1:17.444s in the Supercheap Auto Superlap Challenge under lights.

Mawer’s winning lap was four-tenths faster than the previous Emtron Pro Class record.

He enjoyed a huge 7s margin over runner-up Swede Sami Sivonen, who steered an Audi R8.

Despite smashing his way to the top once again, Mawer felt a 1:16s was possible in the rapid RP968.

“I lost a few reference points in the dark and undercut in the braking at Turns 2 and 6,” he revealed.

“It was great to go through Turn 1 flat, although I thought I could have been faster.

“I will be back next year. It is up to (Rob) Pobestek, but I will come back on a pushbike if I have to because I just love this event.”

In addition to finishing second, Sivonen was also the winner of Pro Am by beating Texan Feras Qartoumy in a PA Chevrolet Corvette.

Qartoumy had a tough build up to the big weekend having endured a midnight engine rebuild on the Wednesday.

Sami Sivonen’s Audi sparking up SMP. Image: MTR Images

But by Saturday his Corvette was fully firing and banked a 1:26.893 to set-up a battle with Sivonen’s ‘Fat Cat’ Audi.

The American then rose to the occasion in the shootout by posting a personal best 1:25.450s.

While he still secured a podium, he was denied victory by Sivonen, who flew to a 1:24.832s.

Rob Nguyen had a busy weekend doing double duties and overcame some early issues including broken driveshafts with his Honda CRX Mighty Mouse.

When it mattered he found 2.7s to leapfrog to third with a 1:27.080s. Completing the top five were Aleck Kazakovski’s GotItRex GC8 and Drew Hall’s Croydon R34 GT-R.

There was high drama in the Open class.

When the cars first rolled out, Nathan Morcom raced out of blocks in his Mitsubishi Evo with an earl benchmark of 1:27.042s.

Come the weekend Rob Nguyen was pushing the boundaries and lowered the benchmark to a 1:26.319s in his Dream Project S15 Silvia.

But this did not last long as Supercars star Tim Slade produced a blinder in his XTREME GT-R.

Despite suffering a front-end failure as he crossed the line, Slade still shot to the top with an impressive 1:25.935s.

Another to encounter drama on Friday was Benny Tran, who experienced an engine failure as he crossed the line, but that was still enough to be in the top five.

He enjoyed a tight battle with Josh Boston all weekend and ended up taking it out by 1.3s.

The fight for Open honours reached a new intensity when the Supercheap Auto Superlap Shootout took place.

A turbo change did the trick for Morcom as he recorded a 1:25.883s to go from third to first in class having improved by over a second.

But his time at the top was short lived as Nguyen went even faster in his Nissan Silvia S15 with a 1:25.543.

This set the stage for Slade to give it everything.

Tim Slade swapped his Camaro Supercar for a Skyline.

Slade had been in the mix driving a XTREME GT-R despite suffering a front suspension failure.

In the one-lap Shootout he had a strong start, being on-track for a personal best in the first sector, only for a tyre failure to destroy his hopes at Turn 5. This forced Slade to abort his lap.

TCR champion Josh Buchan was in action representing Rodin, which had built a Sintura just for the event.

Buchan strung together a series of consistent laps and posted a 1:27.010s to be seventh.

Much like the overall honours, the path to victory in Clubsprint was also full of record-breaking times.

The class was won by the flying Subaru DC Jap STi of Trent Grubel, but only just with less than a tenth in it.

Grubel raced out of the blocks and broke his own lap record twice to take proceedings with a 1:32.234s.

It was an impressive effort given the Subaru’s 2.5-litre engine lost a piston on Friday afternoon and a spare engine was required that night.

Josh Buchan driving the Rodin Sintura. Image: MTR Images

Grubel had to go on maximum attack to win it as the class went down to the wire.

He emerged just 0.04s clear of Alex Michalsky in his Plazmaman Mitsubishi Evo.

Michalsky gave it everything in his Superlap Shootout lap, recording a 1:32.276s, but it was not quite enough to steal the victory.

Mike Garland was sitting third, but did not take part in the Shootout after finding the Turn 5 wall on Saturday afternoon. 

Adam Casmiri, Ryan Marshall and Jimmy Asaad filled out the minor placings.

In the Turbosmart Flying 500 Head-to-Head, where drivers and cars come in off the back of no preparation, George Tsitsos in the Precision Racing twin-turbo Audi R8 took out the AWD class, Frank Cannistra’s VR38-powered Datsun 1200 ute won the RWD class. 

The solid crowd at SMP were not only treated to one-lap shootouts, but also plenty of tyre-smoking drifting action.

Some big names slid side-by-side in pursuit of the Garrett Advancing Motion International Drifting Cup, which ran in the ‘Cup’ format with four pools of six pre-seeded drivers.

The highest point scorers went head to head in the Top 8 Elimination battles and those who made it to the decider were Luke Veersma, Alex Sciacca, Brodie Maher, Rob Whyte, Saxon Moyes, Matt Harvey, Masashi Yokoi, and Matty Hill.

With the intensity risen, Veersma, Maher, Moyes and Yokoi all stepped it up and progressed to the semis.

With a final berth on the line, Moyes overcame Yokoi, while Maher knocked out Veersma.

In the winner-takes-all final, Moyes edged out Maher to lift the Garrett Advancing Motion International Drifting Cup. In the third-place playoff, Veersma pipped Yokoi.

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