19 Cars for GT Festival at Phillip Island

A 19-car entry list has been unveiled for the fourth round of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS season at Phillip Island this weekend.

The inaugural GT Festival has attracted the largest entry of the season so far, an increase of one car from the previous round at Queensland Raceway and two more in comparison to the opening round of the season, which also took place at Phillip Island.

That’s thanks to the return of the Am class No. 44 Tigani Motorsport Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Marcel Zalloua and Sergio Pires, who were absent from Queensland.

However, the Am class remains at six cars, as the No. 34 Volante Rosso Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo moves up to the Pro-Am class with the addition of ex-Formula 1 racer and 24 Hours of Le Mans winner David Brabham to the lineup.

Brabham partners Chris Batzios in the Harrolds Racing-branded Mercedes, with Ross Poulakis moving across to join Alex Gardner in Volante Rosso’s No. 14 Aston Martin Vantage GT3, replacing the absent Ben Porter.

It means 11 Pro-Am cars will be contending for outright honors, with the 19-car grid made up by a pair of entries in the Trophy Class for older machinery.

Valentino Astuti’s partner aboard the No. 38 KMB Motorsport Aston Martin V12 Vantage has yet to be named.

A single point separates the top two crews in the Pro-Am drivers’ standings heading to Phillip Island, as Arise Racing GT Ferrari pair Chaz Mostert and Liam Talbot lead Melbourne Performance Centre Audi crew Will Brown and Brad Schumacher.

The opening race will take place on Saturday at 3:50 p.m. local time (1:50 a.m. EDT), while the second race is slated for Sunday at 12:50 p.m. (Saturday 10:50 p.m. EDT).

Ahead of the start of practice on Friday, a special ‘GT Road Trip’ will be held on public roads between the town of San Remo – located on the mainland just across from Phillip Island – and the circuit itself on Thursday with a selection of GT3 and GT4 cars.