Monochrome GT4 Australia has wrapped up its first day of GT Festival Sandown in style, with a thrilling Pre-Qualifying taking place on Friday afternoon.
All 27 cars featured in the interrupted session ahead of a busy Saturday where plenty of points will be up for grabs, with some repeat drivers on top and some new names taking the day’s top honours.
Silver-Am Cup
It was almost an unchanged top three in the Silver-Am Cup between Practice 1 and Pre-Qualifying as Aaron Cameron and Ryan Hansford once again set the pace for the class.
Their time of 1m14.298s from the eighth lap proved unbeaten for the session, with the Keltic Racing Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO 2 of Matt McCutcheon and Tony Quinn again second fastest for the session – the pair four tenths off the of frontrunners.
Rounding out the top three this time around though was the Tasmanian duo of Lochie Dalton and Ben Newman, with the Buckby Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT4 just one hundredth of a second off the Keltic Racing Toyota.
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Silver Cup
Blake Purdie and Daniel Price stormed to the top of the Monochrome GT4 Australia overall timesheets in the final moments of Pre-Qualifying thanks to an incredible final lap from the former.
Purdie’s final lap time of 1m14.061 was enough to put the Purdie Racing Audi R8 GT4 on top of the class, as he pipped Gomersall Motorsport’s Jake Camilleri by four tenths of a second.
Purdie saved his best until last as Camilleri had produced some strong early laps in his newly acquired Ford Mustang GT4 before losing the spot in the final minutes of the session.
Finishing Pre-Qualifying in third place was the TekworkX Motorsport / ZW Racing Porsche 718 Cayman S of Nash Morris and Zoe Wood, who are showing plenty of pace already this weekend.
Am Cup
Following a decent run in Practice 1, Nathan Callaghan and Chris Lillis managed to put the Method Motorsport Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS CS on top of the class, with the pair enjoying a buffer of four tenths.
In second for the session was 99motorsport / Hansa Equipment’s Marcus LaDelle and Jarrod Keyte in the Ford Mustang GT4, while class leader Jacob Lawrence put the Randall Racing BMW M4 GT4 G82 in third for the session – his best lap time just three tenths off LaDelle and Keyte.
Pre-Qualifying did have some drama throughout the 40-minute session though with EVENTelec GT Festival Queensland podium getter Jamie Arratoon crashing the AR Nineteen Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT4 into the wall midway in the session.
The crash brought out the red flag, however with the Motorsport Australia officials able to recover the car promptly the session was able to be resumed, while Arratoon should be able to make it out to Qualifying in the morning.
Monochrome GT4 Australia will next be on track for Qualifying 1 and 2 on Saturday morning at 9:50am AEST.
Purchase tickets for the event via speedseries.com.au/tickets