Weekly Racing Roundup (7.31.23)

Patterson, Talbot Shine at Sydney Motorsport Park

Garnet Patterson resisted late pressure from Richie Stanaway to win the opening Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS race at Sydney Motorsport Park alongside his EMA Motorsport co-driver Yasser Shahin.

Stanaway emerged from the driver swaps around 20 seconds adrift after taking over the No. 888 Triple Eight JMR Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo from Prince Jefri Ibrahim.

However, the New Zealander closed the gap through lapped traffic and spent the final seven minutes trying to break down Patterson’s defense.

Ultimately, the Porsche driver held sway to claim his and Shahin’s second win of the season by less than half a second.

The next 60-minute race at Sydney saw Liam Talbot and Fraser Ross prevail in their Shannons-liveried Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II after starting from eighth.

Ross gained three positions when drama played out on the opening lap, after points leader Max Hofer started well but tagged Jayden Ojeda’s Mercedes-AM GT3 Evo, causing a chain reaction that left Stanaway with a puncture and Hofer’s Audi almost striking the pit wall.

Harrolds Volante Rosso Motorsport driver Ojeda went on to lead the opening stint from Hofer who overtook Jamie Whincup down the inside at Turn 5.

Breathing space was gained when Hofer received a five-second penalty for the first-lap incident, leaving Ojeda’s co-driver Ross Poulakis six seconds clear after the stops.

Talbot took over from Ross with a 23-second deficit to Poulakis, but the Melbourne Performance Centre Audi driver produced a strong final stint to overtake three cars including the leading Mercedes-AMG at Turn 1 with eight minutes to go.

Hofer and Geoff Emery twice finished fourth, meaning that Talbot returned to a slender two-point championship lead.

RESULTS: Sydney Motorsport Park

News & Notes

***Isotta Fraschini last week continued its LMH development program with a two-day test at Vallelunga attended by Jean-Karl Vernay and Marco Bonanomi. It included the debut of a modification to the rear end for improved hot air release from the engine, as well as work on car setup, aerodynamics and tire management. A mechanical issue limited running at the start of day two.

***Rookie Racing’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo won the five-hour Super Taikyu race at Autopolis. Ryuta Ukai, Hibiki Taira, Tatsuya Kataoka and Naoya Gamou combined to beat the Helm Motorsports Nissan crew by eight seconds. Results

***Tomas Pintos and Gonzalo De Andres swept the third round of the McLaren Trophy Europe season at the Nürburgring. Pintos narrowly beat Michael O’Brien to Race 1 honors by four-tenths of a second, before De Andres delivered a slightly more comfortable five-second margin of victory in Race 2.

**Three-time Super GT champion Yuji Tachikawa will retire from driving at the end of this season. The 48-year-old has been part of Toyota’s GT500 lineup with the Cerumo team every season since 1999.

***Brands Hatch and Donington Park have switched places on next year’s Intelligent Money British GT Championship calendar, making the latter circuit the season finale venue. In an updated schedule, Donington will host its second round on Sep. 7-8 followed by the visit to Brands on Sep. 28-29.

***Donington was provisionally announced as the season finale venue but without a confirmed date. British GT has pointed to “congestion within the U.K’s domestic and SRO’s international schedules” as the reason for bringing it forward in the year. A pre-season ‘media day’ will be held at Donington on May 12.

***The Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 that was used to film the upcoming Orlando Bloom motion picture ‘Gran Turismo’ is for sale and could fetch between £225,000 and £275,000 ($289,000 to $353,000 USD) at auction. The car was used in filming and also had a racing career that included finishing ninth at the 2015 Nürburgring 24.

On this weekend: IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship (Road America), DTM (Nürburgring), Super GT (Fuji), GT America powered by AWS (Nashville)