Tigani Mercedes-AMG Crews Dominate at The Bend

Tigani Motorsport Mercedes-AMG crews won both legs of last weekend’s second round of the GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS season at The Bend Motorsport Park, as Jayden Ojeda and Paul Lucchitti became the year’s first repeat winners.

Ojeda and Lucchitti guided their No. 66 Mercedes-AMG AMG GT3 Evo to a narrow victory in Sunday’s second one-hour race over Broc Feeney and Brad Schumacher, to move within two points of the championship-leading Team MPC Audi duo.

Tigani also had cause for celebration after Saturday’s opener as the Geyer Valmont-backed No. 44 car of Brendon Leitch and Sergio Pires took the spoils.

Pires laid the foundations for his first GTWC Australia win by scoring pole and then leading the opening stint from Schumacher in the No. 1 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, his job made easier when Schumacher lost two places with an off-track moment.

With a five-second gap over the Team BRM Audi of Mark Rosser, Pires handed over to Leitch at the mandatory stops, with Leitch able to manage the advantage over his opposite number in the Castrol-liveried car, Thomas Randle, in the second stint.

The two cars were split by just over 1.5 seconds at the finish.

A further 20 seconds back, Jaxon Evans held off a recovering Feeney to take third in the solo Arise Racing GT Ferrari 296 GT3 that was started by Elliott Schutte, while Will Davison and Renee Gracie were fifth in the OnlyFans Racing Ferrari.

Ojeda and Lucchitti could only manage seventh in the opener, but made the most of starting from pole for Sunday’s finale as Ojeda built an early lead over Tigani stablemate Leitch and the Audis of Feeney and Randle in the early stages.

Lucchitti maintained the lead through the pit stop phase as the Geyer Valmont Mercedes-AMG lost ground with its success penalty, promoting Schumacher to second.

But despite closing up to the back of the Tigani car, Schumacher was unable to find a way by Lucchitti, falling just over half a second shy at the finish.

Rosser took over the No. 268 BRM Audi in fifth and passed Shane Smollen’s No. 56 Tigani entry and the sister Wolfbrook Audi of Steve Brooks to claim third.

Brooks held on for fourth in the car started by Ryan Wood, while the Arise Ferrari of Evans and Schutte completed the top five as Schutte made a late pass on Smollen, and Leitch and Pires had to be content with seventh.

Matthew Stoupas and Paul Stockell took a clean sweep of wins in the Trophy class for older cars aboard their KFC-backed Team MPC Audi.

The GTWC Australia season continues at Queensland Raceway on June 12-14.

RESULTS: Race 1/Race 2