Schumacher Take Step Towards Title With Sydney Victory

Brad Schumacher took a major step towards defending his GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS as he and Team MPC co-driver Broc Feeney notched up their third victory of the season at Sydney Motorsport Park.

Schumacher and Feeney followed up their Hidden Valley win with another Sunday triumph aboard their No. 1 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, giving themselves a 14-point lead over Team BRM’s Mark Rosser heading into November’s Adelaide finale.

However, with Feeney set to sit out the Adelaide weekend due to his Supercars commitments at the street venue, Schumacher will be aiming to win the title solo.

Victory in Saturday evening’s opening race, held under floodlights, went the way of Oscar Targett and Shane Smollen’s Tigani Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

Besides Smollen briefly losing the lead to Tigani stablemate Sergio Pires on the opening lap, the No. 56 Mercedes-AMG controlled the race throughout, with Targett and Smollen becoming the sixth different winning pairing of the season.

With Pires and co-driver Brendon Leitch sidelined by a broken crankcase, Jayden Ojeda and Paul Lucchitti were in prime position to finish at least second, as Ojeda chased down Targett, until a drive-through penalty for a pit stop procedure infraction.

That promoted the No. 268 BRM Audi of Rosser and Alex Peroni to second, with Peroni passing the Arise Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 of Jaxon Evans during his stint.

Evans and Elliott Schutte missed out on the final podium spot as Ryan Wood passed Evans in his BRM-run Wolfbrook Motorsport Audi to claim the place for himself and Steve Brooks, as Evans hung on against Feeney’s MPC Audi for fourth.

Wood and Brooks looked good to make it seven different winning crews in ten races after Wood capitalized on a small error by polesitter Peroni to grab the lead with an aggressive move around the outside of Turn 2 and into Turn 3, making contact in the process.

Brooks was in command after the pit stop phase before hopes of victory evaporated when he stopped on track with just over 20 minutes to go, a possible legacy of the earlier contact between Brooks and Peroni, bringing out the safety car.

Just prior to the caution, Schumacher made what would prove to be the race’s decisive move when he passed Pires’ Tigani Mercedes-AMG, hastily repaired in a compressed timeframe after its issues on Saturday evening, and kept the lead until the end.

Pires and Leitch had to be content with second, while Valentino Atsuti and Darren Currie scored their first podium of the season in their MPC Audi after Currie was able to pick off Rosser, taking over the No. 268 Audi from Peroni, in the closing stages.

Targett and Smollen followed up their victory with eighth place on Sunday, one place ahead of Ojeda and Lucchitti, who suffered from a slow pit stop.

With 50 points on offer on the streets of Adelaide, only three other crews remain eligible for the overall title besides Schumacher and Rosser.

Leitch and Pires sit third overall, 27 points down on Schumacher, while Lucchitti, who is set for a new co-driver in Adelaide amid Ojeda’s Supercars commitments, is a rank outsider with a 40-point deficit. Evans and Schutte trail by 46 points.

In the Trophy class, Paul Stokell strengthened his lead in the championship with a double victory in his MPC-run Audi alongside Matt Stoupas, although Tigani Porsche pair Nathan Halstead and Luke Youlden remain in theoretical contention.

The GTWC Australia season concludes in Adelaide on Nov. 27-29.