From the outside of the front row, 2022 champion Yasser Shahin grabbed the lead and his team-mate Garnet Patterson brought their Porsche 911 GT3 R home the winner in Race 1 of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Powered by AWS third round.
Shahin led through a Safety Car period and until his mandatory pit stop and driver changeover from where Patterson resumed as race leader and was able to hold off the challengers. That was mainly Jayden Ojeda in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 he was partnered in with Ross Poulakis.
In third place were Stephen and Brenton Grove in their Porsche. The father and son combination missed most of qualifying due to a gearbox failure and started off the rear of the grid. They made up 18 positions in the hour that went 33 laps.
Ash Samadi (Audi R8 LMS Evo2) had a spin at Turn 4 but, despite a damaged rear wheel, managed to limp back to the pits. Andrew Fawcet was not so lucky as his Audi was stuck on slippery grass on the inside of Turn 11. That brought out the Safety Car.
The second one was deployed after the round of pit stops. It was brought out by the Adrian Deitz/David Wall Lamborghini Huracan stopped at Turn 3 with a gearbox drama.
The best of the Audis, which looked so strong in qualifying, was the one in the hands of Geoff Emery and Max Hofer which finished fourth, ahead of Justin McMillan and Glen Wood (Mercedes) and the pole-sitters Liam Talbot and Fraser Ross (Audi).
Michael Sheargold and Garth Walden dragged their Mercedes up 11 spots to place seventh ahead of Brad Schumacher (Audi), the two first and second of the Am entries behind the Pro-Ams.
Then followed Matt Stoupas/Paul Stokell (Audi), and the Mercedes of Mike Bailey/Brett Hobson and Christos Batzios/Sam Brabham.
Behind Ams Marcel Zalloua/Sergio Pires (Audi) were the Invitation class MARCs where Darren Currie (MARC II) was head of Geoff Taunton and Dan Jilesen (MARC GT). Michael Kokkinos (Audi) finished 15th in front of Renee Gracie who won the Trophy class.
Australian viewers can watch the Shannons SpeedSeries live and ad-free on Stan Sport, while international viewers can see the action for free on Speedcafe.