Erebus Motorsport’s Jack Le Brocq smashed the unofficial Phillip Island GT lap record during practice for round three of the Australian GT Championship presented by Pirelli today, the Erebus Academy driver and reigning Australian Formula Ford champion setting a pace well clear of all but veteran John Bowe in the Maranello Motorsport Ferrari 458. Bowe set the early pace in the recently upgraded 458, topping practice session one, but Le Brocq stole the advantage from there, comfortably clear in sessions two and three to unofficially reset the record to 1:27.0854.
“There’s plenty left,” Le Brocq explained at the close of the final session. “I got caught up on my quick lap, so didn’t get a clear run, and we haven’t even bolted green rubber on yet.”
In only his maiden event in the Erebus Motorsport Mercedes Benz SLS AMG GT3, Le Brocq went below the unofficial benchmark set by the team’s V8 Supercar driver Tim Slade during testing in the SLS ahead of the opening round of the championship; 1:27.5.
“I’m pretty happy with that,” Jack admitted. “It was comfortable. There’s still a bit left in me, and there’s still a bit left in the car. It was a bit unsettled into turn one, but the team will work that through, although it is only practice.”
Second fastest overall was Bowe, although the Maranello Motorsport regular was more than six tenths slower than Le Brocq (1:27.7155). “That’s not bad,” he admitted. “There’s some more time in the car, but as a package, we’re certainly quicker than we have been around here before.”
Third overall was Roger Lago in the car he raced in Adelaide, with Tony Quinn doing an impressive job in his Aston Martin Vantage GT3 for fourth, only hours after returning from a business conference in the USA.
Fifth fastest was James Winslow in Rod Salmon’s 2012 Bathurst 12-Hour winning Audi R8, the British driver on top of the timesheets during the second session until usurped by Le Brocq late in the session.
Sixth was dual Victorian State Series champion and one of the race favourites, Justin McMillan, although the Lamborghini pilot was frustrated by his lack of pace. “In testing here over the last month we were comfortably faster than we were earlier today,” he admitted. “We found some pace late in the day, but I know we’re faster than the lap times show, we’ll just have to wait and see what comes in qualifying.”
Seventh, was reigning champion and points leader Klark Quinn in the freshly re-liveried VIP Petfoods Porsche GT3.R, the Queenslander not coming back into the country as fresh as his father, and well off his expected pace. Look for him to improve during qualifying.
Eighth was an impressive result from reigning Trophy class champions Dean Koutsoumidis and Andrew McInnes, although they too felt they could have improved, whilst ninth fastest – former team-mate Jan Jinadasa started brilliantly, but suffered a spin in the final corner during practice session two, making heavy contact with the pit-lane wall. His weekend sadly has come to an early conclusion, although fortunately he was unhurt during the impact.
Tenth was Victorian State Series front-runner Steve McLaughlan. The local driver only recently purchased the ex-Greg Crick Dodge Viper that won at Phillip Island 12-months ago and has proven to be pretty handy behind the wheel, winning at Phillip Island during round one of the Victorian series, and running at the front of the Sandown round just last weekend, but he hasn’t yet found his comfort zone during his maiden AGT appearance.
“I think I’m being too gentlemanly,” he laughed. “There’s nothing to win in practice, so I’m staying out of the way of the faster guys, so spending more time watching the mirrors than out the front, I’ll be right come qualifying though, but we’re down a bit on our state series pace.”
Jack Perkins won the battle of the GT4 Ginetta’s, but by only eight tenths in the end after a strong run by class points leader Michael Hovey, with Darren Berry and Tony Martin not too far behind. They were mixed in with the GT Challenge Porsches of Brendan Cook and the father-and-son team of George and Ben Foessel, all of whom were enjoying their maiden runs at Phillip Island, taking things cautiously ahead of qualifying.
Qualifying for race one will get underway at 12:45pm (Saturday, 25 May), with the opening one-hour race scheduled for 3:55pm. Sunday (26 May) will see a pre-race warm-up at 9:45am, with the second one-hour enduro scheduled for 11:45am. (AEST)
2013 Australian GT Championship presented by Pirelli
Combined Practice [24 May]
01. 36. Jack Le Brocq – Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 [CHAMP]
- 1:27.0854 [P3]
02. 88. John Bowe/Peter Edwards – Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 [CHAMP]
- 1:27.7155 [P3]
03. 23. Roger Lago – Lamborghini Gallardo LP560 GT3 [CHAMP]
- 1:28.6607 [P3]
04. 7. Tony Quinn – Aston Martin Vantage GT3 [CHAMP] – 1:29.1960 [P3]
05. 6. Rod Salmon/James Winslow – Audi R8 LMS GT3 ultra [CHAMP] – 1:29.4124 [P2]
06. 48. Justin McMillan – Lamborghini Gallardo LP600+ GT3 [CHAMP]
- 1:29.4310 [P3]
07. 1. Klark Quinn – Porsche GT3-R [CHAMP]
- 1:29.6827 [P3]
08.
71. Dean Koutsoumidis/Andrew McInnes – Audi R8 LMS GT3 [CHAMP] – 1:31.2153 [P3]
09. 77. Jan Jinadasa – Lamborghini Gallardo LP520 [TROPHY] – 1:33.8586 [P2]
10. 75. Steve McLaughlan – Dodge Viper Competition Coupé [TROPHY] – 1:35.5014 [P3]
11. 29. Jim Manolios – Chevrolet Corvette Z06.R [CHAMP] – 1:36.5483 [P3]
12. 19. Mark Griffith/Jack Perkins – Ginetta G50 GT4 [Sport] – 1:38.0383 [P2]
13. 73 Michael Hovey – Ginetta G50 GT4 [Sport] – 1:38.8060 [P3]
14. 25. Brendon Cook – Porsche GT3 Cup [CHALLENGE] – 1:39.5300 [P3]
15. 50. Darren Berry – Ginetta G50 GT4 [Sport] – 1:40.2577 [P3]
16. 9. Tony Martin – Ginetta G50 GT4 [Sport] – 1:41.7704 [P3]
17. 3. George Foessel – Porsche Type 997 GT3 Cup [CHALLENGE]
- 1:42.2284 [P3]
18. 4. Ben Foessel – Porsche Type 996 GT3 Cup [CHALLENGE] – 1:42.2889 [P3]
Source. Australian GT
Sportscar Racing News 
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