The BMW M4 GT4 G82 duo from Orange in the Central West of NSW took the lead away and finished 1.3s ahead of Antonio Astuti and Sam Brabham in their Mercedes-AMG GT4.
Third place went to the McLaren Artura GT4, driven by Marcus Flack and Tom Hayman ahead of George Miedecke and Rylan Gray (Ford Mustang GT4), Oscar Targett (Ginetta G56) and Jake Camilleri (Mercedes-AMG).
While the top six all competed in the Silver class, the battles were also close in the other classes. Lachlan Mineeff and Shane Smollen (Porsche 718 Cayman) won the Pro-Am where they held out class rivals Paul and Nash Morris by 0.4s for seventh place. The AM class went to Tony Levitt (McLaren) over Jacob Lawence and John Bowe (BMW) by 1.9s.
Miedecke led from the start until passed by Ryder Quinn (in Steve Jakic’s BMW) who did the move just before the Safety Car was deployed after Steve Jukes (Audi R8 GT4 LMS) spun off at Turn 1 and had contact with a tyre barrier.
When the race went back to green after nearly seven and a half minutes, Quinn set about pushing out a lead which was 1.5s by the time the pit window opened. Prior to that, Brabham had passed Flack for third while Leahey was fifth.
The latter two were the first to dive into the pits for their mandatory stop and in their cases, driver changes. Shortly after Miedecke was in along with Brabham, as well as Levitt and Targett.
Going long in the race before stopping were Quinn, Mineeff and Nash Morris with stoppers Targett, Astuti, Bucher and Camilleri next.
With all stops completed it was Jakic in front from Astuti, Burcher and Targett by 5s. Camilleri was fifth ahead of Hayman, Smollen, Gray, Woods, Paul Morris, Levitt, Mark Griffith (Mercedes-AMG), Lawrence, Rob Love (Mercedes-AMG) and Peter Lawrence (BMW).
Astuti, Bucher and Targett quickly negated the gap to the race leader and relegated him to fourth and he would soon fall to Camilleri and Hayman.
With around 17mins to go the battle was on for the lead between Astuti and Burcher and they had over four seconds on Targett who would come under pressure from Hayman. Behind the latter Camilleri was also feeling the heat, from Gray who would get past at Turn 4 with 10mins to go.
Bucher finally grab the lead less than 1min later with a bold move around the outside at Turn 1. Around a lap later Hayman completed a successful move at Turn 4 on Targett who would be edged out for fourth by Gray.
Race 2, another one-hour is scheduled for 11:10am on Sunday.
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