Young Pros to lead the Porsche Sprint Challenge charge at Phillip Island

Racing with the Shannons SpeedSeries this weekend, the first of six outings will have an average age of 20 in the outright Pro class, for the three-race program.

Eleven of the youngsters are Porsche Michelin Juniors and are part of 26 driver line up which also includes Pro-Am and Class B competitors.

The Pro class will see the return of Aron Shields, last year’s runner up New Zealanders Marco Giltrap and Clay Osborne, Oscar Targett, fourth in 2023 Hamish Fitzsimmons, and Caleb Sumich.

Among the rookies that will join the second tier one-make Porsche series will be Australian Formula Ford Series runner-up, 16-year-old Jake Santalucia, NZ GT4 Champion, Brock Gilchriest, and Speedway and NZ GT Porsche racer Ayrton Hodson.

Other fulltime newbies include Slade Orsmond who made his debut in the Mount Panorama season finale’ last year, Victorian Formula 3 racer Ben Taylor, and Formula Ford graduate Conor Somers.

Multiple Australian karting champion Tyler Greenbury will return to full-time circuit racing, entered by his own team. He finished second in the 2016 V8 Touring Cars series and then put his helmet aside to run his own karting and Toyota 86 team.

The Pro-Am class fight will be headed by 2022 Pro-Am Champion Brett Boulton as the most successful driver in the class.

He will be challenged by two former Class B contenders, Lachy Harburg and Brad Carr. Meanwhile, Class B champion Phil Morriss will return to set his sights on another title.

Phillip Island also hosted the 2023 season opener, where Giltrap won two of the three races and the round win while Shields won the other race. Sam Shahin led home Boulton in Pro-Am in a clean sweep as Harburg clean swept Class B.

The recent brand new resurface could see one of the oldest lap records at the circuit, Matt Campbell’s 2014 time of 1:31.1140 broken.

There will be practice and qualifying this Friday, ahead of Race 1 at 2:45pm on Saturday afternoon. The first race in the Jim Richards Endurance Trophy kicks off Sunday’s program at 9:20am, followed by the finale at 12:55pm.

The Shannons SpeedSeries event will be shown live and free on the Seven Network this Saturday and Sunday.

Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge Australia Round 1 Entry List