GTs light up Townsville

Always an eagerly anticipated and hotly contested round of the Australian GT Championship, the Castrol Edge Tonsville 400 saw a large field line up to contest Round 5 of the championship, with reigning champion, Audi’s Christopher Mies back in the country from stints racing overseas.

Mies very quickly stamped his authority on the race meeting in the #1 Jamec Pem Audi R8 LMS entry, posting a blistering lap time on the Reid Park circuit to claim pole position for the start of the first race. 

Mies’ time 1:11.86 seconds around the Townsville circuit set a new record, comfortably consigning the previous 1:12.8 second lap record to the history books.

The next best Audi, the Superbahn Supermarkets R8 LMS of James Kondourous and Marcus Marshal performed strongly but only managed seventh to start the first of the two-race meeting.

In the first race, Christopher Mies, who has been dividing his time between the Australian series and commitments for Audi in Europe, continued his qualifying dominance, converting his pole position into a solid lead which at one point stood at 10 seconds over Klark Quinn in the hard charging McLaren. But with pit stop penalties, Mies’ teammate Tony Bates was unable to hold off a late challenge from Quinn who managed to sneak past in the last 12 minutes of the race. 

This gave Audi a second place with the Kondouras/Marshall Audi finishing just as they had started in seventh position. 

In the second race, the Audis again started strongly, with Kondourous and Marshall charging through the field to reach as high as second position before ultimately finishing in a strong sixth position to secure valuable points in the championship. Bates did his best in the opening stages of the race and likewise held out challengers to the front of the field on numerous occasions, before eventually relinquishing a podium position. Christopher Mies took the wheel of the Jamec Pem #1 car after a pitstop on lap 20 to ultimately post a fifth position finish, with Steve McLaughlin in the #2 Jamec Pem Audi also finishing in the top 10. 

McLaren driver Klark Quinn, who looked to have secured the double for the weekend, received a 25 second stop/go penalty after he’d crossed the checkered flag for overtaking under a yellow flag, ultimately losing the win and handing it to Tony Walls in another McLaren. The penalty saw Quinn ultimately finish in seventh.

Only just out of the Top 10, three more Audis recorded strong performances with Marc Cini in the Hallmarcs Developments car, Ash Samadi (Bondi Wholefoods) and Greg Taylor in the GT Motorsport securing positions 12, 13 and 14.

The GTs will now head for the ‘pointy end’ of the season and an appointment at Highlands Motorsport Park in New Zealand for Round 6, November 11-12.

At time of writing, points standings see James Kondourous and Marcus Marhshall tied for third position in the Australian GT Championship, with Steve McLaughlin just back in fifth position.