Canard Joins Volante Rosso for Sydney Enduro

Andre Canard will join the Volante Rosso squad for the penultimate round of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS season at Sydney Motorsport Park.

Filipino racer Canard will partner Alex Gardner aboard the team’s No. 14 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 for the three-hour enduro at the track formerly known as Eastern Creek on Oct. 18-19, becoming Gardner’s third different co-driver in as many rounds.

It comes as Volante scales back to a single car, with its Mercedes-AMG entry sitting out Sydney before returning for the final round of the season at Bathurst in November.

“We’re very pleased to have Andre joining us for this endurance round,” said Volante Rosso director Chris Papadopoulos.

“We’ve done a good amount of prep work with him over the last few months working towards this outing and his quality and experience is readily apparent, with a great attitude too. It fills us with confidence heading into this event.

“We’ve made great progress with the Aston Martin since we first turned a wheel two months ago, so of course we’re itching to get back out there and get into the competition.”

Bronze-rated Canard arrives in Australia fresh off the back of a season in Fanatec GT Asia with the Absolute Corse team, sharing a Ferrari 296 GT3 with Finn Gehrsitz.

The pair finished seventh in the Silver-Am cup with three class podiums.

“I’m really looking forward to coming to Australia to race in Sydney,” said Canard.

“I like endurance racing more than sprints, so this one really suits me and I can’t wait to come down. I’m also looking forward to meeting Alex, as well as the team owners Chris [Papadopoulos] and Josh [Hunt].”

Volante Rosso’s old-spec Aston Martin made its debut in the third round of the season at Queensland Raceway, where Gardner was partnered by Ben Porter.

Ross Poulakis then moved across to join Gardner in the No. 14 car for the most recent round at Phillip Island, as ex-Formula 1 racer David Brabham made a one-off outing in the Volante-run Harrolds Motorsport Mercedes-AMG.