Second consecutive title for Shahin

South Australian Yasser Shahin, has made it back-to-back titles in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS, winning two of three races in the season final over the weekend.

Driving the Melbourne Performance Centre (MPC) prepared Audi R8 LMS GT3, Shahin with Audi Sport driver Christopher Mies, produced another successful performance to claim another title during the Adelaide 500 weekend.

On the streets of Adelaide it was all Audi from the very start in the GT class, with two Audi Sport drivers, Mies and South African Kelvin van der Linde trading blows in qualifying. Ultimately it was Mies, who has enjoyed such success racing in Australia in the past, who dominated, topping the time sheets in the second practice session with a 1:18.6836s to beat van der Linde’s 1:19.0379s set in the R8 LMS he shares with Tony Bates.

The racing proper started with a close run race that saw the Shahin Mies pairing cross the line just 0.333 seconds ahead of Tony Bates and Audi Sport driver Kelvin van der Linde. Liam Talbot and Fraser Ross were hot on their heels in third for an Audi clean sweep of the podium.

In the second race the order changed slightly to see Talbot and Ross take the win after Bates and van der Linden were denied at the win after a five-second driver through penalty. 

Shahin and Mies slipped just out of the top three finishing in fourth, but going into the final race the championship was already Shahin’s barring a complete reversal of fortune.

A win in the final race for the round and the year put it all beyond doubt and Shahin added his second consecutive title and third in total to wrap up a season that saw him winning races from the first round.

Indeed it was a successful weekend for Audi and for Melbourne Performance Centre (MPC) across the board. Fellow Audi driver Liam Talbot finished second in the Pro-Am standings while the Gary Higgon and Paul Stokell combination were victorious in the Amateur Drivers Championship. In the GT Trophy standings for older cars, Team Launch Racing’s Michael Kokkinos took the top spot in his R8 LMS ultra with Brad Schumacher and his Audi runners up in the category.

Over the course of the 2022 season, Audi LMS race cars prepared by MPC claimed no less than seven of the 11 sprint races. The result also makes the seventh time that Audi Sport customer racing has won the title in Australian GT sprint racing having claimed the title in 2011, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021. Congratulations to all on another stellar season.