Schumacher, Brown Boost Title Chances with Queensland Win

Brad Schumacher and Will Brown boosted their Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS title chances by becoming the first repeat winners of the season in last weekend’s third round of the season at Queensland Raceway.

At the wheel of their No. 87 Melbourne Performance Centre-run Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, Schumacher and Brown led a 1-2 for MPC Audi crews in Sunday’s second race to put themselves within a point of the championship lead with three rounds to go.

After an unsuccessful challenge on the pole-sitting Tigani Motorsport Mercedes-AMG of Jayden Ojeda at the start, Brown fell victim to a fast-starting Brendon Leitch in the No. 7 MPC Audi, slipping to third in the opening stint.

But with the two cars ahead serving success penalties at the pit stops, Schumacher was able to take over at the head of the field after replacing Brown in the cockpit of the No. 87 car and ease to victory by just under eight seconds.

Taking over the No. 7 car from Leitch, Tim Miles came home second, followed by the Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes-AMG of Declan Fraser and Peter Hackett.

Ojeda and his teammate Paul Lucchitti had to be content with fifth place after Lucchitti was passed in the closing stint by both Hackett and the Arise Racing GT Ferrari 296 GT3 of Liam Talbot, who took over from Chaz Mostert at the stops.

Am class honors went to Mike Sheargold and Garth Walden in their RAM Motorsport Mercedes-AMG, the pair finishing eighth overall.

In Saturday’s opener, it was another Audi crew that scored victory, with Team BRM pair Alex Peroni and Mark Rosser becoming the fifth different crew to win a race this season.

In a chaotic race featuring three caution periods, it was the MPC Audi of Leitch and Miles that took the win on the road, but a 10-second penalty as a result of an unsafe release and an overlap at the restart demoted the car to third.

In the closing stages, having taken over from Rosser at the stops, Peroni had to defend from Ojeda’s Tigani Mercedes-AMG while also not allowing Leitch to escape ten seconds up the road, which he finally managed with seven seconds splitting the top two.

Ojeda and Lucchitti inherited second place as Ojeda finished just a second behind Peroni.

Prior to that, Peroni had been involved in a Turn 1 incident as an aggressive move on Fraser’s Triple Eight Mercedes-AMG led to that car making contact with Renee Gracie’s MPC Audi, which was then collected in turn by Brenton Grove’s Mercedes-AMG.

Such was the damage that Grove Racing elected to withdraw from Sunday’s finale.

Also caught up in the melee were Brown’s MPC Audi, which failed to finish having started from pole, and the Arise Ferrari of Mostert, which ended up 10th.

The sister Ferrari of Jaxon Evans and Elliott Schutte took fourth place ahead of the top Am runner, the Black Wolf Mercedes-AMG of Ben Schoots and Shane Woodman.

Despite failing to finish on the podium in either race for the first time this year, Mostert and Talbot continue to the lead the Pro-Am drivers’ standings by a single point by Brown and Schumacher, with Leitch and Miles a further two points back in third.

The Fanatec GT Australia season continues with a second visit of the season to Phillip Island on August 23-25.

RESULTS: Race 1/Race 2