Monochrome GT4 Australia has wrapped up its track activity for the first day of GT Festival The Bend with an entertaining Pre-Qualifying session.
It was a Silver-Am masterclass in Pre-Qualifying as the top three outright cars all came from the class, with barely a tenth separating the top-ranked Silver cars.
Silver
Blake Purdie and Daniel Price topped their second straight Monochrome GT4 Australia session on Friday after the former posted a remarkable time of 1:56.599.
For a large portion of the session it was the Method Motorsport McLaren Artura GT4 of Tom Hayman and Max Geoghegan who occupied top spot, however Purdie managed to snatch the fastest time in class from the McLaren.
Not only did the Audi end up on top of Hayman and Geoghegan in the final stages, but Nash Morris and Zoe Woods in the Tekworkx Motorsport Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS CS also ended up above thanks to the former’s brilliant penultimate lap.
Just six hundredths of a second was the difference between Purdie and Morris, while Hayman ended up one and a half tenths off the Porsche of Morris and Woods.
Even less of a gap was the difference between Hayman/Geoghegan and the Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes-AMG GT4 of Jarrod Hughes and Summer Rintoule with less than one hundredth of a second the difference.
Silver Am
An extremely late push from Aaron Cameron has seen the Multispares Racing star take out bragging rights in Pre-Qualifying.
Cameron steered the Ford Mustang GT4 he shares with Ryan Hansford to the top of the timesheets on his final lap, with his time of 1:55.875 pipping Zac Soutar by just over one and a half tenths of a second.
Up until that point, Soutar looked to have posted the fastest time of the session in the Tufflift Racing TSM McLaren Artura GT4 after taking over from Glenn Nirwan, with his fastest time just three hundredths of a second faster than the Gomersall Motorsport Ford Mustang GT4 of Aaron Seton and Jason Gomersall.
Earlier in the session, Seton had guided his Ford Mustang to the top of the class with an impressive lap of 1:56.079, and neither he nor Gomersall were able to improve on his fourth-lap time.
Chris White also showed promise in the Keltic Racing Toyota GR Supra GT4 Evo 2 with Tony Quinn, while JP Drake continued his impressive debut in the McLaren having occupied third for the class for a large portion of the opening 15 minutes.
Am
Marcus LaDelle and Jarrod Keyte once again topped the time sheets after a last-ditch lap of 1:58.801 from LaDelle saw the 99motorsport pair fastest for the session by one tenth of a second.
Running in their Ford Mustang GT4, they edged out the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS CS of Chris Lillis and Nathan Callaghan, who found plenty of pace in the opening half of the session after Lillis’ fastest time towards the end of his stint proved three tenths faster than the Randall Racing BMW M4 GT4 G82 of Jacob Lawrence.
Even less of a gap split Lawrence with the second Method Motorsport Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS CS of Shane Smollen – just four hundredths of a second separating them.
Monochrome GT4 Australia returns tomorrow with Qualifying 1 and 2 in the morning before the first race of GT Festival The Bend takes place in the afternoon.