Schumacher and Feeney initially finished third behind the race-winning Paul Lucchitti/Jayden Ojeda Tigani Motorsport Mercedes-AMG and Elliott Schutte/Jaxon Evans Arise Racing Ferrari.

With just over 10 minutes to go in the race, an epic battle between Steve Brooks, Shane Smollen and Schumacher came to a head at the Southern Loop,

Schumacher tipped Smollen into a spin and officials deemed the #1 Melbourne Performance Centre Audi driver was at fault.

The incident took Smollen and his co-driver Oscar Targett out of contention. They were ultimately classified 11th.

Schumacher, meanwhile, was given a 15-second penalty for the incident, which demoted him and Feeney to ninth.

The podium instead went to Brooks and Wood in the #88 Team BRM Audi R8.

“Car 1 collided with Car 56 at Turn 1 in an avoidable collision,” the stewards report read.

“The DSA advised that having viewed the video footage from several sources and that Car 56, having made a mistake, had stayed wide and that Car 1 had come up to him and collided.

“B Schumacher said Car 56 had turned down on him and it was a racing incident.

“The Stewards accepted the opinion of the DSA and found that Car 1 driver was predominantly the cause of the collision. The error warranted a 15 sec time penalty.”

Schumacher and Feeney were one of three combinations to receive post-race penalties.

The Luke Youlden/Nathan Halstead Tigani Motorsport Porsche 911 was given a 15-second penalty for an incident with Volante Rosso’s McLaren 720S on the first lap.

Damage from that clash ultimately relegated Youlden and Halstead to the pit lane after one lap.

Team BRM’s #268 Audi R8 of Mark Rosser and Thomas Randle had 40 seconds added to its time for a clumsy incident on the final lap with the Sergio Pires/Brendon Leitch Mercedes-AMG by Tigani Motorsport.

The GT World Challenge Australia season resumes at The Bend on May 8-10.

Feeney and Schumacher lead the standings on 30 points with Evans and Schutte second on 28 points. Ojeda and Lucchitti are third on 26 points.

Results: GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS Phillip Island, Race 2