Porsche Duo Lose Townsville Win, Ferrari Combination Elevated To Victory
THE results of today’s first race in round three of the Australian GT Championship Presented by Pirelli in Townsville have been altered significantly following a post-race penalty applied to the across-the-line winner.
The Porsche GT3-R of Andrew MacPherson and Brad Shiels crossed the line first to win the one-hour, 46-lap opening race of the weekend, however have been demoted to 16th place in the final classification via a post race penalty confirmed by race officials this afternoon.
They were adjudged to have not completed their Compulsory Pit Stop time duration and were penalised the equivalent time penalty of twice their allocated pit stop time, a total of three minutes and 12 seconds.
The penalty elevates the Maranello Motorsport Ferrari 458 GT3 of Tony D’Alberto and Grant Denyer to victory, Tony Quinn’s McLaren to second and the Erebus Mercedes-Benz of Geoff Emery and Max Twigg to third.
It’s the first win for a Ferrari in the Australian GT Championship in a full year given D’Alberto and John Bowe won a race last year at the corresponding round in Townsville 12 months ago.
It’s also Denyer’s first win in the AGT Championship in just his second appearance with the Melbourne-based Maranello team.
He and D’Alberto will start Race 2 from pole position tomorrow with the final one-hour race of the weekend for AGT to be at 12.10pm local time.