Arise Racing GT will head into qualifying with confidence after it set the pace during the morning Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Powered by AWS session at the GT Festival, Phillip Island.
It was the Jaxon Evans/Elliott Schutte Arise Racing GT Ferrari 296 GT3 in pre-qualifying setting a 1m 25.431s to marginally top the timesheets from the Realta/Tigani Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT4 of Jayden Ojeda and Paul Lucchitti by just 0.071s.
Making it three different marques in as many positions, Brendon Leitch and Tim Miles followed in the Dayle ITM Team MPC Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II.
Triple Eight Race Engineering’s Declan Fraser and Peter Hackett were placed fourth ahead of the Will Brown/Brad Schumacher Shaw & Partners/Kelso Electrical Team MPC Audi as just 0.350s separated the top five.
Series leaders Liam Talbot and Chaz Mostert placed sixth for Arise Racing GT ahead of the Team BRM/ACM Finance Audi of Alex Peroni and Mark Rosser, which stopped on track causing the a red flag during the one hour session.
Stephen and Brenton Grove ended the session eighth in the Grove Racing GT Mercedes-AMG GT3 from the OnlyFans Team MPC Audi shared by Renee Gracie and Paul Stokell.
Completing the top 10 was the leading Am Class entry of Garth Walden and Mike Sheargold driving the RAM Motorsport/GWR Australia Mercedes-AMG GT3.
The Aston Martin AMR Vantage GT3 of Alex Gardner and Ross Poulakis for Volante Rosso Motorsport was 11th ahead of the Black Wolf Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Ben Schoots and Shane Woodman, second in Am Class.
Harrolds Racing’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 of David Brabham and Chris Batzios followed in 13th outright from the Valmont Racing/Tigani Motorsport Audi of Marcel Zalloua and Sergio Pires.
Leading Trophy Class was the KMB Motorsport Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 of Valentino Astuti and Darren Currie, while Ash Samadi was next in the Team MPC Audi.
The repaired Supabarn Supermarkets/Tigani Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3 of brothers James and Theo Koundouris was fifth in Am Class ahead of Marc Cini for Hallmarc Team MPC as the Scott Taylor Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3-R (997) completed the field with Paul Morris and Scott Taylor at the helm.
Qualifying begins for Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Powered by AWS at 12:05pm and can be watched live on the GT World YouTube Channel.
Kayo/Foxtel coverage begins at 2:15pm AEST for Australian viewers covering the races.