The second round of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Powered by AWS is underway at Bathurst on the famed Mount Panorama Circuit. The first of two visits to the circuit for the championship; there will be two one-hour sprint races held over the Easter weekend; race 1 at Saturday 3rd April at 14:15 local time, and race 2 at 8:50 on Sunday morning 4th.
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The circuit — often seen as the holy grail of Australian motorsport, has attracted a grid of 17 cars, with the field headed by five Pro-Am entries.
After a strong round 1 at Phillip Island, Melbourne Performance Centre (MPC) returns with two Audi R8 LMS GT3s for the pairings of Yasser Shahin/Garth Tander and Tony Bates/Chaz Mostert.
Challenging them for victories over the weekend comes the experienced paring of Jefri Ibrahim and Shane van Gisbergen in the Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, having raced on the mountain in the 2020 Bathurst 12 Hour. Also with mountain experience, Grove Racing debuts a new Porsche 991.2 GT3R piloted by father Stephen Grove and son Brenton Grove.
Rounding out the Pro-Am field is Adrian Deitz and David Wall in the iconic-liveried Lamborghini Huracán GT3.
The four-car strong Am field is represented by two Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evos for Mark Cini and Arthur Abrahams, while a second Huracán GT3 is run by AMAC Motorsport for owner/driver Andrew Macpherson and Brad Porter — both having strong experience campaigning the car in the GT World Challenge Asia series, and having previously raced at the mountain in frequent Bathurst 12 Hour campaigns. Series stalwart and former Australian GT Championship owner Tony Quinn rounds out the field in his latest generation Aston Martin Vantage GT3.
Brett Hobson returns to the mountain once more in his ever popular Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 in the trophy class and hopes to retain the pace that has seen his car feature in the pointy end of the field with later spec cars. The Trophy class features five previous generation Audi R8 LMS GT3 cars and is rounded out by a V12-powered Aston Martin Vantage GT3 for Michael Bailey.
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