By Tarek Ramchani
Adelaide is hosting the second round of the Australian GT Championship this weekend. Two races are planned supporting the Clipsal 500, the V8 Supercars season opener. Race 1 took place today with mixed results for the Melbourne Performance Centre supported Audi Sport customer racing teams.
Two Audi R8 LMS cars took part of the event. The #71 Audi R8 LMS from Minda Motorsport shared by drivers Dean Koutsoumidis and Andrew McInnes, the car started from ninth place. The second car, the #6 Audi R8 LMS ultra of Rod Salmon, started from eleventh.
Close battles on track around the famous temporary Adelaide street course. Two major incidents brought the safety car out onto the course twice during the race. Unfortunately the second safety car was caused by Rod Salmon in the #6 Audi R8 LMS ultra. Following a touch from behind in turn 14 the "Orange" R16 with Rod Salmon was a passenger as he hit the wall whilst exiting turn 8. Due to the damage he was forced to retire from the race, and the rest of the weekend.
The #71 Minda Motorsport car completed a strong first race. Dean Koutsoumidis and Andrew McInnes finished eighth overall, sixth in the " GT Championship" class. The race win went to Craig Baird with his Mercedes-Benz SLS AMS GT3 ahead of Roger Lago's Lamborghini Gallardo and Klark Quinn's Porsche GT3 R. Race 1 results are here.
Race two is set for tomorrow, a 30-minute true sprint race format. We wish the best of luck for race 2.
Photo credit: Melbourne Performance Center
