A nine-strong contingent has headed to Phillip Island for pre-season testing ahead of the GT World Challenge Australia opening round in a fortnight’s time.

The majority of the cars running were Melbourne Performance Centre Audis, with six entries present for Yasser Shahin, Victor Zagami, Tony Bates/Chaz Mostert, Vince Tesoriero, Gary Higgon and Matthew Stoupas.

Peter Edwards and Adrian Dietz were also on hand in the Maranello Motorsport Ferrari 488; as was Dean Koutsoumidis in the M Motorsport Lamborghini Gallardo R-EX; and Dale Paterson in a Camaro GT3.

Upwards of 20 GT3 and GT4 cars are expected to line up at Phillip Island.

“Interest in the 2021 Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS has been fantastic,” said category manager Ken Collier.

“The fact that there is a renewed focus on the amateur drivers who own the cars has seen many cars come back to the circuit competitively.

“Being able to compete for either the Motorsport Australia GT Championship Am or the separate Motorsport Australia GT Championship Pro-Am has also been well received.

“Australian motorsport needs to have a strong GT race category and get back to the regular, big fields of five and six years ago.

“I feel we have an on-track package to do this with our Seven Network TV broadcast, the ARG and SRO partnership plus the complete support of Motorsport Australia.”