Another race is now behind our drivers in this second GT3 season of racing, and in the latest round, we have seen our drivers tackle the Mountain in the Land Down Under. For those of you that are not so familiar with it, round 5 of our championship was held at the famous Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, Australia. One could be surprised by the fact that this is actually classified as a street circuit, with some of the parts being used as public roads, when there's no racing action happening at the circuit of course. German driver Maro Engel even described the circuit as the "Blue Hell", trying to compare the circuit, in a way at least, with the famous Nordschleife, which is often referred to as the "Green Hell".
Let's now jump straight into action from the race weekend! As per usual, since the previous round, our Silver class drivers have started with the first 15 minutes of the qualifying session. Unfortunately, we have only had 7 drivers in the class racing this time around, but pole position went to our Silver class championship leader, Yannis Bouguerra, with a lap time of 2:01.860, which also meant P9 in the overall standings. Second place in class, with a lap time of 2:02.302 (+0.442s), went to Phil Clarke, and Mike Landreth qualified third with 2:02.760 (+0.900s). Clarke's time put him in 13th overall, and Landreth achieved 15th position with his time.
The second half of qualifying was reserved for our Gold class drivers. Once again, Abe Santema put in a great lap time of 2:00.410, which was 0.362s quicker than Hugo Boucher's best effort in second place (2:00.772). Third place went to Olivier Breniaux, with 2:01.075, which was 0.665s off the pole position time.
Since the circuit tightens up quite a lot after the first couple of corners, race starts are always super tricky. Not just race starts, but the first couple of laps of the race as well. We have seen a small incident at the top of the Mountain on the opening lap, but luckily for everyone involved, it didn't escalate into a huge pile up of cars. Of course, even after the opening couple of laps, drivers can not afford to lose focus on this circuit for even one second, as it can come back to bite you real quick! That was also the case for many of the drivers in this race as well, but in the end we only 4 drivers retire from the race.
Santema managed to avoid all the perils of this race, managed to sail home to a comfortable victory, ahead of Andrey Fedotov. While Damien Bosc, who started in 5th position, after a great race, climbed his way onto the final podium position!
In the Silver class, we have also seen a convincing performance from Buguerra, who also claimed the win quite comfortably. In second place, we can find Paulo Tempera, coming back from a difficult qualifying session, that saw him start in 7th place. Completing the podium this time around was Landreth, keeping his starting position in class!
Once again, the Mountain proved to be a very difficult place for most of the drivers, but now we already shift our focus to the final race of the season coming up. The drivers will be travelling to North America, the USA to be precise, paying a visit to Watkins Glen International Raceway for the 90 minute season finale! We can expect some more close racing and entertaining battles all over the place, but until then, make sure to check out our other channels, YouTube and Twitch, and we will see you on track next time!