Hayman was shuffled backwards at the race start and was forced to battle at the back end of the top 10 from a third place starting position.
Battling back through the pack, all while body damage sustained in the opening laps effected the car’s driveability, Hayman handed over to Geoghegan who nursed the
car home to victory over championship rivals Rylan Gray and George Miedecke, cutting the latter’s championship lead significantly.
“As the sun started to go away the car started to come back on, but with all the damage the ABS was just going haywire, so basically like driving a car with no ABS.“ Geoghegan said.
“Max did an awesome job to bring the car back, I didn’t actually know where we’d get to considering the damage, and getting turned in on at the second last corner,” Hayman said.
Early on it seemed as though the championship contenders would be in for a tough race, as Hayman was shuffled down the order and Gray had qualified lower than expected.
To add insult to injury, while the championship protagonists were out of position, none of the race leading cars would have to serve any additional pit stop time from success at the previous round.
Ryder Quinn was the clear winner in the opening stint ahead of the pit stop window, making up 10 positions after starting 14th.
Sandown race winner Jake Camilleri was forced to pit with damage to the front right of his #36 Ford Mustang, still having to serve an additional 15 seconds of pit stop time and taking him well out of the running.
All of the race leaders peeled into the pit lane simultaneously on lap 15, with the biggest winner being Tim Leahey’s #22 BMW M4 emerging in sixth position after a tough opening stint left co-driver Cody Burcher outside the top 10.
Summer Rintoule took over the #87 Triple Eight Mercedes-AMG from Jarrod Hughes and emerged as a threat to the race lead, catching Glen Nirwan’s McLaren at a quick pace.
Nirwan held his own as the pair held onto the top two positions, with title contenders George Miedecke and Max Geoghegan fighting up into the top five and catching the lead pair at blistering pace.
Rintoule eventually made it past Nirwan on lap 20, but it was not long before the McLaren of Geoghegan was able to pass the pair of them for the lead.
The vastly experienced Miedecke was able to snatch second position from Rintoule a short time later.
Nirwan tried to hang on for the Silver-Am Cup victory, but the #27 Ford Mustang of Ryan Hansford found his way through for the class lead and fifth position outright.
Randall Racing’s Jacob Lawrence sat largely unchallenged in the Am Cup lead for the duration of the race, bringing the #32 BMW home in 12th outright, while Marcus LaDelle and Shane Smollen battled for second in class in the closing laps.
Monochrome GT4 Australia returns for one more one-hour race on Sunday, set to commence at 11:45am local time (12:15pm AEST).
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