The final GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS session for GT Festival The Bend has been completed, with Jayden Ojeda and Paul Lucchitti unbeaten in the one-hour-long Pre-Qualifying session.
The Tigani Motorsport duo comfortably controlled the top of the timesheets for the majority of Friday’s final outing, finishing with a 1:45.810 – two and a half tenths faster than the next best crew.
With Ojeda starting the session in the team’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, the New South Welshman posted his best time nine laps into his stint, displacing the Melbourne Performance Centre Audi R8 LMS Evo II of Broc Feeney and Brad Schumacher.
From that point, his lap remained the benchmark, with the pair bouncing back strongly from a challenging Practice 2 earlier in the day.
The Melbourne Performance Centre Audi R8 LMS Evo II of Ryan Wood and Steve Brooks went second fastest, while Arise Racing GT’s Jordan Love and Steve Wyatt steered their Ferrari 296 GT3 to third, giving the series three different manufacturers in the top three.
Remarkably, fourth fastest was another Audi R8 LMS Evo II, piloted by Alex Peroni and Mark Rosser. The Team BRM duo missed out on third by one of the slimmest margins of the day – just two thousandths of a second separating them from the Ferrari of Love and Wyatt.
Rounding out the Pre-Qualifying top five, only one hundredth of a second behind Peroni and Rosser, were Practice 2 pace-setters Jaxon Evans and Elliott Schutte in the Arise Racing GT Ferrari 296 GT3.
Renee Gracie continued her dominance of the Am Class with a lap-six effort of 1:48.494 that remained unbeaten for the rest of the session – Grant Donaldson, driving the 111 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo solo, managed to get within six tenths of the Melbourne Performance Centre Audi R8 LMS Evo II.
James and Theo Koundouris once again guided their Tigani Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo to the third fastest time in the class for the third consecutive session – the pair just two hundredths behind Donaldson.
Matt Stoupas and Gary Higgon in the Trophy Class completed 21 laps to round out the field in their Audi R8 LMS Evo I.
GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS returns bright and early on Saturday morning with its double Qualifying session from 8:40am ACST, before Race 1 takes place at 1:25pm ACST.
Australian-based race fans can watch the action live and free on 7plus, with international viewers tuning in via the GT World YouTube page. Tickets are also available for purchase at speedseries.com.au/tickets.