Extending the lead

A torrential downpour, a spin off the track and shortened final race weren’t enough to dampen defending champion Yasser Shahin’s weekend at the fourth round of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Championship as he went on to further increase his championship lead.

Teaming up once again with Australian racing great, Garth Tander at Sandown Raceway for the Shannons Motorsport Australia Championships, the pair battled some terrible weather conditions as well as stiff competition from the Mercedes-AMG team and fellow Audi drivers Liam Talbot and Fraser Ross to capture a second place finish in the first race and another win in the second of the weekend.

In the first race both Shahin and Tander spun during their respective stints at the wheel. Conditions worsened and a severe downpour led to the premature end of the race with the Shahin/Tander paring crossing the line in second behind Liam Talbot and Fraser Ross in the #20 Audi R8 LMS.

There was no let up in the rain for the second race of the weekend, in fact conditions worsened to such an extent that a 20 minute stoppage was called for safety reasons. 

The race was ultimately restarted with just 12 minutes of racing remaining, the ultimate result coming down to the final lap o the shortened race. First Audi privateer Tony Bates overtook Mercedes-AMG driver Prince Jefri Ibrahim to take the lead, but then spun his R8 when he hit water across the track to let Shahin to dive through and take the lead and the win in the second race. Reversing the order of the first race, Talbot and Ross claimed second position and the Mercedes of Prince Jefri Ibrahim rounded out the podium. This is exactly the order in which the rivals are now competing for the title: Shahin leads the Pro-Am standings ahead of Talbot, with Ibrahim and teammate Shane van Gisbergen lurking another four points behind. 

The weekend points haul takes Yasser’s tally from 10 to 20 points and puts him in a strong position to successfully defend his crown with just three more rounds remaining in the championship. 

Next up the series heads ‘home’ for Shahin with racing at The Bend Motorsport Park in South Australia in October. The GTs then head to Bathurst in November for the Supercheap Auto Bathurst International and then wrap up the year’s racing back in South Australia in early December, this time at the Adelaide Parklands Circuit.