After Jack Le Brocq’s domination of qualifying and race one at Phillip Island for round three of the Australian GT Championship, the big question ahead of Sunday’s second one-hour race was by how much he could lower his new lap record. The answer in the end was by another half second, the 20-year old lowering the previous benchmark by the best part of four seconds on his away to another incredible race win in his debut in the Erebus Motorsport Mercedes Benz SLS AMG GT3. Second overall in both races courtesy of a brilliant drive was Tony Quinn, whilst third was Peter Edwards and John Bowe in their Maranello Motorsport Ferrari 458 Italia GT3, the duo carding two consistent fourth placed finishes for the weekend.
The day dawned damp, with threatening clouds leaving teams uncertain of what the race would bring. In the end the conditions were almost perfect for GT competition, with ambient temperatures in the mid-teens, and a drying circuit.
Making the most of it was pace-setter Le Brocq who charged off the line leaving the field in his wake. Behind him Tony Quinn was quickly up to speed and for the first quarter of the race he was within three seconds of the Mercedes, but as the compulsory pit stop [CPS] window approached, Le Brocq put the head down and charged. By the time he pulled into the pits to make his CPS, he’d opened up a lead of more than 20-seconds, all but negating his 18-second penalty due to his status as a professional driver.
Behind them the big race was unfolding between Peter Edwards, race one podium finisher Roger Lago, and points leader Klark Quinn in a scene reminiscent of race one’s battle between the trio and the Audi of Rod Salmon.
Edwards was holding down third place, whilst Quinn was locked in behind the Lamborghini of Lago and unable to find a way past. He knew what was ahead of him if he didn’t try something quickly so he continued to push, making his way past on lap 17 as Lago started to struggle with pace. Five laps later he was out..
“Four weeks ago I had an engine failure in my other car whilst we were testing here, and it looks like we’ve suffered a similar failure,” he lamented. “I felt something I didn’t like yesterday, but there didn’t appear to be anything terminal, but not long after Klark got past the low pressure warning appeared as I came out of Honda, so I shut it down.” And that was that..
Just minutes before the pit stop window closed at the 40-minute mark, both Le Brocq and Klark Quinn came in for their CPS, Le Brocq rejoining in the lead, and Klark third, exiting pit lane seconds before the window closed.
With a lightening fuel load and a new benchmark lap time to challenge courtesy of resetting the lap record yesterday, Le Brocq charged through the final leg of the race, breaking his own record by another half a second on lap 30.
He wasn’t the only one. Behind him Tony Quinn took eight tenths of a second off his best, and Peter Edwards broke into the 1:29s to be just a second off team-mate John Bowe’s best.
By chequered flag time though it was all Le Brocq, the Mercedes driver crossing the line 43-seconds ahead of Tony Quinn who battled fatigue over the closing laps to finish just marginally ahead of son Klark and the Edwards/Bowe Ferrari.
An exhausted Tony Quinn stepped out of his Aston post-race and acknowledged what had been one of the best racing weekends of his career.
Fifth was Justin McMillan who recovered from his race one accident to charge through the field, but the dual Victorian State Series champion admitted to feeling a little under the weather post race. “I suffer a little from motion sickness, and tried a different remedy today that really didn’t work. A couple of times there I nearly made a mess of myself.. I guess too I was a little sheepish after the crash yesterday, so I didn’t have the outright pace I’d have liked, but in the end, I probably couldn’t have done too much better than fifth.”
Sixth was James Winslow in the Rod Salmon Skwirk.com.au Audi R8 LMS ultra, the multiple F3 champion doing his best to win the battle of the Audis after Andrew McInnes took the early advantage in the Dean Koutsoumidis’ LMS during the opening stint.
Steve McLaughlan recovered from his opening race disappointment to win the Trophy class, the Victorian bringing the ex-Greg Crick Dodge Viper home in eighth, winning the battle of the State Series contenders with muscle-car arch-rival Jim Manolios, the Trofeo Motorsport/Pirelli Corvette Z06.R coming home in ninth position.
As they had done yesterday – in part thanks to the abilities of Jack Perkins – Mark Griffith took the round three GT4 Sports honours, with two strong wins, leading home points leader Michael Hovey and Tony Martin/Lee Castle. Darren Berry and Keith Kassulke were unable to improve on their opening race podium after the throttle stuck wide open on Kassulke on the run into turn one on the opening lap, bringing their race to a premature end.
And in the battle of the GT Challenge cars, George Foessel took the race two win, and the round victory after splitting the Ginettas, the Queenslander – having his maiden run at Phillip Island – finished 12th, two positions ahead of Brendan Cook and three ahead of son Ben.
Despite being comfortably the fastest of the Challenge cars, Cook again struck trouble after a gear shift failure in race one, tyre failure struck him in race two, with first an early right front failure, and later further problems the team hope to remedy before round four.
“It was disappointing to have the speed but not get the result,” he admitted afterwards.
2013 Australian GT Championship presented by Pirelli
Rnd#3, Phillip Island – Race #2 [May 25]
01. 36. Jack Le Brocq – Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 [CHAMP]
- 38-laps
02. 7. Tony Quinn – Aston Martin Vantage GT3 [CHAMP]
03. 1. Klark Quinn – Porsche GT3-R [CHAMP]
04. 88. John Bowe/Peter Edwards – Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 [CHAMP]
05. 48. Justin McMillan – Lamborghini Gallardo LP600+ GT3 [CHAMP]
06. 6. Rod Salmon/James Winslow – Audi R8 LMS GT3 ultra [CHAMP]
07.
71. Dean Koutsoumidis/Andrew McInnes – Audi R8 LMS GT3 [CHAMP] – 37-laps
08. 75. Steve McLaughlan – Dodge Viper Competition Coupé [TROPHY] – 36-laps
09. 29. Jim Manolios – Chevrolet Corvette Z06.R [CHAMP]
10. 19. Mark Griffith/Jack Perkins – Ginetta G50 GT4 [Sport]
11. 73 Michael Hovey – Ginetta G50 GT4 [Sport] – 35-laps
12. 3. George Foessel – Porsche Type 997 GT3 Cup [CHALLENGE]
13. 9. Tony Martin/Lee Castle – Ginetta G50 GT4 [Sport] – 34-laps
14. 25. Brendan Cook – Porsche GT3 Cup [CHALLENGE]
15. 4. Ben Foessel – Porsche Type 996 GT3 Cup [CHALLENGE]
DNF. 23. Roger Lago – Lamborghini Gallardo LP560 GT3 [CHAMP] – 21-laps
DNF. 50. Darren Berry/Keith Kassulke – Ginetta G50 GT4 [Sport] – 0-laps
Source. Australian GT
Sportscar Racing News 
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