Yasser Shahin has extended his lead at the top of the GT World Challenge Australia leaderboard after a dramatic race at Sandown today.
It was yet another affair interrupted by poor weather causing a safety car and a red flag, with the race leader spinning on the penultimate corner to gift Shahin and Garth Tander the win.
Kiwi hope, and yesterday’s race-winner, Shane van Gisbergen had looked set for race victory when he brought the Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes into the pits from the lead with minutes remaining, handing over to Prince Jefri Ibrahim for the final lap.
The late stop proved costly, the race pace of the earlier stoppers too much, the duo losing three spots on the final lap. They did, however, benefit from a spin from Tony Bates at the final chicane to improve to a podium spot.
It was van Gisbergen who started on pole for the second and final race of the event, starting well and managing to survive a loss of traction on a wet surface at Turn 1.
The conditions hampered the efforts of the drivers once again, an early safety car intervention required after a collision between two Mercedes’ required vehicle retrieval from Turn 11.
Following the restart, several drivers were loose over various corners, David Reynolds one of the unlucky few unable to keep the car pointed the right direction.
The conditions worsened from here, a red flag bringing a halt to proceedings with van Gisbergen in the lead.
Once proceedings resumed with only 12-minutes remaining, the majority of the field had yet to make their compulsory stop and driver change, many of them doing so with only six minutes on the clock.
Bates, Shahin and Liam Talbot stopped a lap earlier than the Mercedes-AMG GT3 of van Gisbergen, Ibrahim given the reigns to bring home the car over the final lap.
Emerging from the lane with the lead, getting back to race-pace proved difficult with low tyre temperature impacting Ibrahim.
It was Bates, the partner of Reynolds, who pounced first, snatching the lead at Turn 6 on the final lap. Shahin followed just three turns later, Ibrahim then under pressure from Talbot.
The drama wasn’t finished there, however, Bates losing traction and spinning into the grass at the final chicane before the line, gifting Shahin race honours.
Behind, Talbot had also managed a pass on Ibrahim, seeing the duo come home second and third respectively, the stricken Audi R8 LMS GT3 evo II of Bates removed from contention.
The GT World Challenge Australia now takes a one month break, returning to The Bend over the weekend of October 21-23.
Banner Photo: Copyright; Jack Martin Photography
