Wood takes out Aus GT Race 2 in Townsville

Glen Wood has taken victory in Race 2 of the Australian GT Championship in Townsville, after the threat of Ash Walsh was nullified by a drive-through penalty.

What looked set for a grandstand finish became a slightly more comfortable win for Wood (#48 M Motorsport Lamborghini R-EX) with the fast-finishing Kelvin van der Linde having taken up the pursuit.

The Audi factory driver ran out of laps to chase Wood down and he and Geoff Emery finished second, ahead of Race 1 winner and championship leader Liam Talbot (#911 Walkinshaw Porsche 911 GT3-R).

Wood got a good launch from third on the grid to split the front row and lead Talbot on the opening laps.

Scott Taylor, on the other hand, was elbowed wide by James Koundouris at the third corner, dropping from third to seventh after starting second in his #222 STM Mercedes AMG GT.

Worse was to come for Taylor when he punted Fraser Ross at Turn 2 on the next lap, ending the latter’s race with rear suspension damage to his #59 McElrea Racing McLaren 650S.

Talbot passed Wood for the lead at Turn 11 on Lap 3 and quickly pulled away to a lead which initially fluctuated around a second before Wood recovered some ground.

The top three of Talbot, Wood, and Duvashen Padayachee continued to tighten before the latter was the first of the front-runners to take his CPS at the end of Lap 15.

Talbot entered pit lane a lap later but Wood waited until Lap 18 to stop, a decision which was important in the final outcome as Talbot battled traffic after his stop.

Wood resumed his race with a six second advantage over Talbot, who now had Ash Walsh sweating on him in the #44 Supabarn Audi R8.

Walsh made the pass at Turn 3 on Lap 21, but did so with a bump and run that nearly put Talbot into the wall.

Van der Linde, who had taken over the #74 Jamec Pem Audi R8 from Emery, took advantage of the disruption to Talbot’s rhythm to quickly steal third, two corners later.

Walsh set what was then the fastest lap of the race next time around and looked like running down Wood, but was forced to serve a drive-through for his indiscretion which dropped him to sixth.

Van der Linde was hacking anywhere from 0.4s to 1.5s out of Wood’s lead each lap, setting the fastest lap on Lap 27, but fell 2.0s short when the clock ran out on Lap 32.

Ash Samadi finished fourth, as Walsh regained one position for he and Padayachee to finish fifth.

The rest of the top 10 was Roger Lago (#23 JBS Lamborghini R-EX), Tony Walls (#11 McElrea Racing McLaren 650S), Max Twigg (#8 WM Waste Management Mercedes AMG GT), Tony Quinn (#7 Darrell Lea McLaren 650S), and Steven Richards/James Bergmuller (#100 Laser Plumbing BMW M6).

Tony Bates (#24 Eggleston Motorsport Mercedes AMG GT) was a non-starter after a major shunt in Race 1, but has been cleared of serious injury.

A final 40-minute race will take place at 1355 local time/AEST.

Results: Race 2, Round 4, Townsville