Australia’s Campbell Dominates GT Sprint Cup for Gold

Photo: Porsche

Matt Campbell drove to the gold medal for Australia in Sunday’s GT Sprint Cup finale in the FIA Motorsport Games at Paul Ricard, following a dominate display by the Porsche factory driver.

Campbell took the checkered flag in the 60-minute contest 1.617 seconds ahead of Mirko Bortolotti in the Grasser Racing Team-prepared Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo, with pole-sitter Dries Vanthoor claiming a bronze medal for Belgium.

Vanthoor, driving a Sainteloc-prepared Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, lost pole at the start to second-place starter Campbell, having been shuffled back to third behind Turkey’s Ayhancan Guven, who had a strong opening few laps in his Porsche 911 GT3 R.

However, Guven lost second to Bortolotti on Lap 9 and then was shortly forced to surrender third to Vanthoor after a ruling from the race director due to exceeding track limits.

Up front, Campbell managed to extend his gap his Grove Racing-backed, Earl Bamber Motorsport-run Porsche in a commanding run, although the five-second buffer was reduced in the closing laps by the Lamborghini and Audi.

Guven, in a Toksport WRT-run entry, ultimately finished fifth after a hard-fought battle with Luca Stolz with his SPS automotive performance Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

Stolz got around the Turkish driver with 20 minutes to go.

A five-second time penalty for Dani Juncadella for exceeding track limits relegated the Spaniard to ninth at the checkered flag, meanwhile.

Late-race contact for Moroccan driver Michael Benyahia while battling for sixth with Tristan Vautier, resulted in the Optimum Motorsport-operated McLaren 720S GT3 dropping out of the race with damage on the final lap.

It promoted Bruno Baptista’s Mercedes to sixth as the highest-placed FIA Silver-rated driver, Evan Chen seventh for Chinese Taipei and Vautier crossing the line in eighth.

RESULTS: GT Sprint Cup

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John