The Carrera Cup weekend delivered plenty of close racing, with Queensland Raceway proving a difficult circuit for Kiwi drivers Clay Osborne and Marco Giltrap to make passes.
Qualifying:
Harri Jones claimed his 11th Carrera Cup pole position with a blistering 1:08.813 lap, edging David Russell by just 0.0099 seconds.
Clay Osborne delivered a strong performance to secure 6th on the grid with a 1:09.101, only 0.288 seconds off Jones’s pace.
Fellow Kiwi Marco Giltrap was close behind, clocking a 1:09.250 to start 13th, just 0.140 seconds slower than Osborne.
Race 1:
Osborne made a strong getaway in Race 1, jumping Bayley Hall off the line and immediately challenging Dale Wood for fourth, running side-by-side through Turn 3. Wood held firm, leaving Osborne to slot in behind while also fending off Hall.
Giltrap’s start was less fortunate, with Tom McLennan and Angelo Mouzouris both finding a way past, dropping the young Kiwi two places. On lap two, Giltrap briefly regained a spot from Mouzouris around a corner, but couldn’t hold on and slipped back again.
That same lap, Hall reclaimed his position from Osborne, forcing the Kiwi to defend sixth from rapid Carrera Cup France guest Marcus Amand. Osborne held him at bay for two minutes before Amand found a way through.
Eight minutes into the race, McLennan had fallen to 14th, allowing Giltrap to recover one position. Osborne, meanwhile, was unable to stay with Amand but built a 1.5-second buffer over Marcos Flack behind, securing seventh place at the flag.
Giltrap closed a two-second gap to Hamish Fitzsimmons down to one second in the closing stages but had to settle for 14th.
At the front, Jones took the win and dedicated it to his newborn son, Leo, who had arrived at 4am that morning.
Race 2:
Race 2 saw Osborne lose two places off the line, but he quickly regrouped, overtaking teammate Caleb Sumich to climb back to eighth.
Giltrap enjoyed a strong start, surging from 14th to just outside the top ten with three early passes. However, by the end of the opening lap, Glen Wood had reclaimed a spot, pushing the Kiwi back to 12th.
Close behind, Lockie Bloxsom was also applying pressure before running wide and spinning off.
Osborne found himself in the middle of a tightly packed group, forced to defend from Sumich while looking for a way past Dylan O’Keeffe. Eight minutes in, Pro-Am leader Rodney Jane spun into the gravel and was unable to rejoin, triggering the safety car.
When racing resumed, Marcos Flack pounced on Giltrap to demote him to 13th, and with five minutes remaining, Bloxsom recovering through the field, slipped past as well, putting Giltrap back in his starting position of 14th, where he finished.
Despite staying glued to O’Keeffe’s rear wing in the closing laps, Osborne couldn’t find a way through and crossed the line eighth.
Race 3:
Osborne lined up eighth for the final race and was immediately shuffled back a spot by Angelo Mouzouris, holding ninth ahead of Lockie Bloxsom.
From 14th, Giltrap gained early ground by passing Tom McLennan to move into 13th. However, five minutes in, a slight off-track excursion allowed McLennan to close in and retake the position.
Midway through the race, Osborne pulled off one of the moves of the weekend, overtaking both Bayley Hall and Mouzouris in one sweep down the straight. He claimed the inside line into Turn 1 to secure seventh.
The move left Hall with mechanical damage, forcing him to tumble down the order and eventually to the back within two laps.
With Hall behind him, Giltrap climbed to 13th, and on the final lap, McLennan ran off the road, promoting the Kiwi to 12th at the flag.
Osborne’s charge ended with a two-second gap to Marcos Flack ahead, too much to close in the remaining laps matching his best result of the weekend in seventh.
Harri Jones completed a dominant sweep of all three races, taking the championship lead from Dylan O’Keeffe.
The series now heads to The Bend Motorsport Park in South Australia for the next round on September 12–14.
Header Image: Porsche Motorsport Australia
