Hofer tops Australian GT standings

Young Austrian driver Max Hofer has continued his stellar form in this year’s Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Powered by AWS with another race win over the weekend.

Contesting the third round of this year’s championship at Phillip Island Grand Pix circuit, the 23-year-old placed third in the first race of the weekend, before taking top honours in the second race to ice the meeting and take the points for the round.

It was his first weekend racing with three-time champion Geoff Emery, having contested the first two rounds in another Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II with Liam Talbot. 

Driving the Jamec Racing team R8 LMS, Hofer and Emery were right at the pointy end of the field throughout practice, topping the time sheets for the first session and second fastest in the second session.

In qualifying, Emery put the car in third spot behind Liam Talbot and his Audi in first and Yasser Shahin in a Porsche in second, ultimately finishing the race in that same, third position.

In the second race, Hofer was initially in third place before pitting and handing over to teammate Emery, who returned to the track on lap 20 as the new leader. Emery, who was Australian GT Champion with Audi in 2017 and 2019, was never threatened in the remaining 16 laps of the race and went on to win by 3.4 seconds over Liam Talbot and Fraser Ross in Shannons Insurance R8 LMS GT3. 

The win for Hofer is his fourth so far this season, having won both races in the opening round of the season at the Hi-Tec Oils Bathurst 6 Hour in early April, driving with Liam Talbot. He followed this, again with Talbot, later that same month at Round 2 in Perth, failing to finish the first race but charging across the line to win the second.

With three of the six rounds now complete in the series, Hofer leads the standings with 115 points ahead of Geoff  Emery on 103 and Liam Talbot in third with 101 points.

It’s a far cry from the then 17-year-old who kicked off his racing career in Audi Sport TT Cup in 2016 before going on to drive an RS 3 LMS in the ADAC TCR Germany Championship. In 2019, he won the junior classification in the ADAC GT Masters in an Audi R8 LMS and last year clinched the title in the GTC Race series with this GT3 sports car. This year he made his debut as one of the 14 Audi Sport customer Racing drivers.

The Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Powered by AWS heads to Sydney Motorsport Park in late July for Round four of the Championship.