GT news: Mercedes, Audi split GT3 poles at Queensland Raceway

Jayden Ojeda converted practice pace into Pirelli Pole Position as Brad Schumacher also collected his second in a row after the two qualifying sessions for Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS at Queensland Raceway.

Will Brown’s MPC-run Audi. Image: Supplied

On home turf, Triple Eight Race Engineering’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the hands of Declan Fraser was third from Chaz Mostert in the first Arise Racing GT Ferrari 296 GT3.

Next was Mostert’s teammate Jaxon Evans from Brenton Grove driving the Grove Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3, the Dayle ITM Team MPC Audi of Brendon Leitch, Team BRM/ACM Finance’s Alex Peroni and the debuting Volante Rosso Motorsport Aston Martin AMR Vantage GT3 of Alex Gardner.

In fact the top 10 was covered by a second, with Ross Poulakis impressing to lead the Am Class in Harrolds Racing’s return.

Equally stunning was Valentino Astuti’s performance in the Trophy Class KMB Motorsport Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 to be 11th outright ahead of the OnlyFans Team MPC Audi of Renee Gracie, Ben Schoots for Black Wolf Motorsport and James Koundouris in the Supabarn Supermarkets/Tigani Motorsport Mercedes-AMG.

Completing the field were Ash Samadi, RAM Motorsport’s Mike Sheargold, Paul Morris in the Scott Taylor Motorsport Trophy-spec Porsche and Marc Cini in the Hallmarc Team MPC Audi.

In the second session, Schumacher led an Audi 1-2 in the shortened session as the OnlyFans Team MPC Audi of Paul Stokell will share the front-row.

Ben Porter was eighth in the Volante Rosso Motorsport Aston Martin, but an off at Turn 1 led to the new AMR Vantage GT3 meeting the tyre wall. The team is assessing the damage.

The incident occurred with five minutes remaining and the session was not restarted.

Schumacher led the session on a time of 1m 07.303 to be 0.136s clear of Stokell as Peter Hackett maintained third in the Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes-AMG from Garth Walden’s similar RAM Motorsport example leading the Am Class contenders.

Tim Miles was fifth for Dayle ITM Team MPC from Elliott Schutte in the lead Arise Racing GT Ferrari and Mark Rosser driving the Team BRM/ACM Finance Audi.

Next behind Porter was title leader Liam Talbot in the second Arise Racing GT Ferrari.

Samadi was second in Am Class in 10th outright from the Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Stephen Grove, Theo Koundouris, Cini, Paul Lucchitti in the pacesetting Realta/Tigani Motorsport Mercedes-AMG from the opening qualifying session and KMB Motorsport’s Darren Currie.

Shane Woodman, Scott Taylor and Chris Batzios rounded out the field.