Broc Feeney and Brad Schumacher win Queensland Raceway Race 1

Broc Feeney and Brad Schumacher claimed victory in Race 1 of GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS at Queensland Raceway, following a dramatic opening to the race.

Having started from pole position, the pair both produced solid stints behind the wheel of the Team MPC Audi R8 LMS EVO II to score an 11-second victory over Tigani Motorsport’s Jayden Ojeda and Paul Lucchitti.

Claiming victory in the Am Cup was Renee Gracie after the Queenslander enjoyed an intense battle with her class rivals, while Paul Stokell played a significant role in giving Team MPC a clean sweep of class wins in the race after he and Gary Higgon comfortably secured the Trophy Class victory in their KFC/Team MPC Audi R8 LMS EVO I.

Following epic qualifying sessions earlier on Saturday, the race got off to an incredibly dramatic start as contact between Team BRM’s Mark Rosser, Team MPC’s Tim Miles and Arise Racing GT’s Elliott Schutte sent the former two spinning before the field had even reached the opening corner.

The incident brought out the BMW Safety Car, with Rosser managing to rejoin in his Audi R8 LMS EVO II. However, it was race over for the Dayle ITM / Team MPC Audi of Tim Miles and Brendon Leitch, while Schutte continued without issue.

Sergio Pires took full advantage of the incident, moving his Geyer Valmont Racing/Tigani Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO into second place ahead of Schutte. Once the BMW Safety Car intervention concluded, Volante Rosso’s Liam Talbot made his move, getting the Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 past the Ferrari.

Schumacher went on to build his lead at the front of the field as the laps continued, while Rosser only lasted 10 laps before being brought back into the pits and eventually retiring.

The race then settled for the next stint of the race until the pit stops, which reignited the action.

The Arise Racing Ferrari 296 GT of Schutte and Evans was again in the thick of the drama as Schutte overshot the stop and had to be pushed back, before the team was eventually slapped with a drive-through penalty after falling short of the compulsory pit stop time, seeing them fall down the order.

After charging from eighth to second, the Aston Martin of Volante Rosso had their progress undone by a drive-through penalty for a pit stop breach, costing them valuable track position.

With Feeney taking over after a seamless stop with Schumacher, the Queenslander built a comfortable lead out front. Ojeda later climbed into second aided by penalties to Fraser and Evans and a clean move on Tigani Motorsport stablemate George King, who was battling issues in the Geyer Valmont Racing Mercedes.

Chasing down Feeney who had built a sizeable lead, Ojeda eventually cut the buffer down to within 11 seconds, while the pair continued to build their gap to the rest of the field. Evans had recovered superbly to get the Ferrari back into podium position, gaining track position on Fraser through the pit stop cycle before passing a struggling King.

Once Evans got to third, the top three didn’t change as Feeney led Ojeda and Evans across the finish line.

As for the Am Cup, while Gracie added yet another victory to her name, she was made to work for it as she was locked in a big battle with the #111 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Grant Donaldson and Darren Currie.

The two cars exchanged the lead multiple times for a few laps midway through the race before Gracie eventually took command and maintained her lead for the remaining laps.

Like the Am class, the Trophy Class saw an entertaining battle unfold between the Porsche 911 GT3-R (991) of Luke Youlden and Nathan Halstead and the Audi of Stokell and Higgon.

While the Porsche worked its way in front on the opening lap of the race, it was the Audi of Higgon and Stokell who would be victorious as they went in front after the pit stop window and never looked back.