Matthew McCutcheon and Tony Quinn have come away with victory in the AASA Three-Hour Fight in the Night Endurance Race in Queensland, while pole-sitter Fabian Coulthard has recovered from an early issue to take fifth.
Off the start, Coulthard immediately lost the lead as Quinn moved up into seventh place. Coulthard immediately started to close the gap back up to the leader, and sat a second and a half off Camirelli.
However, drama struck for Coulthard as he was forced three laps down with an issue. Coulthard’s co-driver John Nikolovski jumped in the car after an hour, and sat in sixteenth. For Quinn, he remained in the car, and sat in second place – a minute off the leader.
With an hour and a half remaining, McCutcheon took over the reins from Quinn, and sat in tenth place. Positions consistently changed as drivers in different classes ran different strategies, and after half an hour in the car, McCutcheon had climbed up to fifth.
At the same time, Coulthard’s teammate Nikolovski sat in eighth, albeit still laps down on the leaders.
Coulthard jumped back in for the final stint of the race – and started to show pace. Although he sat laps down, he was able to put in multiple fastest laps and started to close the gap to the car ahead.
With fourty-four minutes to go, McCutcheon was able to take the lead, while Coulthard held ninth. However, McCutcheon soon lost the lead, but was able to recover to be leading with twenty minutes to go, and was able to comfortably drive away to take victory by over fourty seconds.
Coulthard was able to recover to fifth place, and finished with the fastest lap in what could be both a bittersweet race after starting from pole, but recovered well to finish in the top five.
AASA will take a break and will resume on November 13th at Calder Park Raceway.
