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At least half the field suffered tyre delaminations, which included the race-leading BMW M4 of Grant Sherrin who had two and cost him any chance of victory.
The teams were not happy with the way the Yokohama AO50 Medium performed and reported that the tread was peeling off.
“It is like they are retreads, and I don’t know if there will be enough tyres left to get through the meeting,” said one competitor.
“At $600 a pop, it is ridiculous.”
Because of delaminations, many of the cars also suffered inner and outer guard damage as well as side skirts.
Sherrin was leading the first race when he had the right rear go with around three minutes of the one-hour race remaining.
He no sooner left the pits when the right front went and was left with no recourse but to limp to the finish line in fifth position.
The ones that did escape all the drama were Cameron Crick (Class X BMW M2) who won the race ahead of Mark Caine (Class X BMW M4), Michael Osmond (A1 BMW M135i) and Allan Jarvis (Class C VW Polo GTi).
Chris Lillis (A2 Chev Camaro) was sixth in front of Chris Sutton (A1 Mitsubishi Evo X) after both had the tyre dramas, Loclan Hennock (Toyota 86), Tom Shaw (A1 BMW 1M), Hadrian Morrall (A2 Ford Mustang) who had two, and Dean Lillee (A1 BMW M140i).
The teams were far more circumspect in the second one-hour which was taken out by Simon Hodges (M4) ahead of Tyler Mecklem (Mustang), clear of Dean Campbell (M2) who just held out Iain Sherrin and Lillis. A lap behind were Darcy Inwood (B1 Subaru Impreza WRX STi) and Paul Buccinin (M140i).
The issue wasn’t limited to Yokohama and the Australian Production Cars, however. There were multiple Pirelli failures in the closing minutes of Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Powered by AWS too.
During Friday practice, Will Brown suffered a tyre failure on approach to Turn 1 and the failures continued on Saturday in Race 1.
The most high-profile victim was the Brendon Leitch/Tim Miles Audi R8, which was running third with two minutes to go when its right rear tyre blew.
The Arise Racing Ferrari 296 of Jaxon Evans/Eliott Schutte was running fourth when it suffered the same issue.
Renee Gracie limped her Audi home to the chequered flag with a puncture on the final lap.
Seeing the punctures around him, Will Brown backed off and set a time more than 10 seconds off the pace.
The GT Festival at Phillip Island continues on Sunday with a further two one-hour Australian Production Car races and a one-hour outing for GT World Challenge Australia.
