Garnet Patterson has brought current GT champion Yasser Shahin’s Porsche 911 GT3R home a one second winner in Perth.
In a measured second half of the first race of the Fanatic GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS second round, Patterson finished ahead of an extended dice between Jamie Whincup (Mercedes-AMG GT3) and German Chris Mies (Audi R8 LMS Evo 2), who finished 0.7s apart.
Chasing down that duo was Richie Stanaway, subbing for Broc Feeney in the second Triple Eight Mercedes, 5.6 seconds adrift.
From the outset it was Liam Talbot (Audi) who bolted to the lead ahead of Geoff Emery who would later hand over to Mies. Shahin made up one spot off the start to head Brad Schumacher (Audi) and the Princes, Abu Bakar and Jeffri Ibrahim who would pass onto Whincup and Stanaway respectively.
On the tenth lap, Talbot lost the lead with an off track excursion at turn seven. Then later he had contact out of the same corner with Justin McMillan (Mercedes) which caused a rear end breakage and a spin at turn one. He manage to get the car back to the pits and retirement with Max Hofer missing out on a drive.
Shahin and Patterson had less time to serve at the mandatory pitstops which set up the win. It was at this time that Whincup took over from Ibrahim and snuck out ahead of Mies after he replaced Emery in the Audi.
Fifth in the end went to Jayden Ojeda and Ross Poulakis (Mercedes) who saw off the challenge of Jordan Love and Tony Bates to have a 1.2 second advantage at the chequered flag.
Garth Walden and Michael Sheargold (Mercedes) finished ninth with Ash Samadi (Audi) next despite contact between the two that saw the latter turned around.
Brett Hobson and Mike Bailey (Mercedes) were next ahead of Renee Gracie (Audi), Michael Kokkinos (Mercedes) who overcame spins and contact early in the race with McMillan, and Mark Griffith (Mercedes) in the only GT4 entry.
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