BMW has secured its first outright victory at the GT Festival after a storming stint from Cody Burcher delivered victory for he and Tim Leahey in the Central West Prestige M4 GT4 G82.
Not only did the Burcher/Leahey combination take the Silver Cup victory from Sam Brabham and Antonio Astuti in the Love Racing by Volante Rosso Motorsport Mercedes-AMG, while Marcos Flack paired with Tom Hayman took third for Method Motorsport in the McL:aren Artura GT4.
The Pro-Am was also intriguing, but it was Method Motorsport’s Shane Smollen and Lachlan Mineeff in the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 MR CS. It was a chase down victory after the Black Diamond Building and Construction BMW shared by Ryder Quinn and Steve Jakic led for most of the race until the closing stages. The pair scored third behind the Nash and Paul Morris Memo racing McLaren 570s GT4.
Debutant Anthony Levitt made the dream start by securing the Am Cup victory in the Method Motorsport McLaren Artura GT4 from John Bowe and Jacob Lawrence in the Randall Racing BMW, while Mark Griffith secured third in the Team Nineteen Mercedes-AMG GT4.
Polesitter George Miedecke led the way in the Miedecke Motorsport/Lubrimaxx Mustang from Quinn into Turn 1. The biggest loser off the start was Leahey after dropping three spots to sixth. The BMW driver lost position to Method Motorsport’s Flack, Brabham and debutant Oscar Targett driving the Team Nineteen Ginetta G56 GT4.
Quinn was unrelenting on Miedecke in the battle for the lead and slid down the inside by executing a textbook pass at Turn 4.
An incident for Steve Jukes exiting Turn 1 in the Verve Motorsport Audi R8 GT4 LMS led to the first safety car eroding Quinn’s lead.
The safety car left the circuit with five minutes remaining until the pit stop window opened as upon the restart Brabham was the big mover demoting Flack to fourth.
It was an interesting battle for the final podium slot as Brabham held off Flack, Leahey and Targett.
Flack and Leahey elected to pit as soon as the window opened removing the pair from the traffic. Flack handed over to Hayman, with Leahey was replaced by Burcher in his maiden start in Monochrome GT4 Australia.
The battle for the Am Cup lead was just as intense as the two Randall Racing BMWs battled with Bowe leading Jamie Augustine, Levitt, Bailey Love in the Love Racing by Volante Rosso Motorsport entry and Griffith.
As the pit stops filtered through, the battle for the effective lead was heating held by Targett.
Astuti replaced Brabham in the lead Love Racing by Volante Rosso Motorsport Mercedes-AMG and pursued Targett, making the pass across the top of Lukey Heights. Burcher was also close behind and completed the move for second a couple of corners later.
Meanwhile, Quinn handed over to Steve Jakic in the Black Diamond Building and Construction BMW to maintain the outright lead. However, this changed at MG two laps later as Astuti and Burcher slid through as the new leaders dropping Targett by 4.3s.
Jakic still maintained the Pro-Am lead, but Smollen was closing with every lap to be just 3s behind with a quarter of the race remaining.
Levitt had won the Am Cup battle after the pit stops to lead the class by 3.9s from Griffith as Lawrence having taken the wheel from Bowe sat in third.
With 10-minutes remaining, there was nothing splitting Astuti and Burcher except for a brave yet successful pass around the outside by the BMW to take the lead.
It was a lead Burcher held to the end from Astuti, Hayman and a storming Rylan Gray demoted Targett to fifth in the closing stages.
Gomersall Motorsport’s Jake Camilleri secured sixth outright from the lead Pro-Am entries of Smollen/Mineeff and the Morris father-son combo.
TekworkX Motorsport’s Tom McLennan and Zoe Woods took ninth outright ahead of Levitt winner of Am Cup.
Monochrome GT4 Australia continues tomorrow at 11:10am AEST live on Foxtel/Kayo and GTWorld YouTube.