Adelaide Driver Plans in Focus Amid Supercars Clash
Photo: GT World Challenge Australia
Three leading GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS teams face being without their leading Pro drivers for the final round of the season in Adelaide, amid a recent rules clarification that is set to allow top-line factory drivers to replace them.
The driver lineups at Melbourne Performance Centre, Team BRM and Tigani Motorsport are all set to be impacted for the final two races of the season on Nov. 28-29 due to the fact the Adelaide event shares the bill with Australia’s Supercars series.
As such, Broc Feeney, Ryan Wood and Jayden Ojeda are all set to focus on their Supercars commitments and sit out the GTWC Australia title decider.
SRO Australia had initially stipulated that any stand-in should be of similar caliber to the driver they replace, introduced since the series’ previous visit to Adelaide in 2023, when the likes of Christopher Mies and Matt Campbell made one-off appearances.
But Sportscar365 has learned these rules have now loosened, potentially opening the door to factory GT3 talent to appear on the streets of Adelaide, which also marks the final round for SRO Motorsports Group’ global GT World Challenge ranking.
A bulletin circulated among teams states that any “driver substitution does not necessarily need to be a like for like substitution in terms of driver categorisation”, although any change must be approved by the series’ Sporting Board.
The organizers also reserve the right to apply additional penalties — including extra weight or pit stop time — or to make any entry invisible for points-scoring purposes.
MPC co-owner Troy Russell has hinted the team has an experienced Audi regular on hand to stand in for Feeney alongside points leader Brad Schumacher in the No. 1 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, telling Sportscar365: “We have a very handy replacement.”
Christopher Haase, who is well known to MPC and drove in this year’s Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour alongside Schumacher and Will Brown, has been linked to the seat.
At Tigani, Scott Andrews is understood to have been initially lined up as the replacement for Ojeda in the No. 66 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo alongside Paul Lucchitti, as the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup regular was deemed a like-for-like replacement.
However, the rule clarification means Tigani could now instead run a works Mercedes-AMG driver: potentially either Maro Engel or Lucas Auer, both of whom could travel directly on to Adelaide from the previous week’s FIA GT World Cup at Macau.
Auer is already confirmed to drive for first-time Macau participant Tigani on the Guia Circuit.
BRM’s choice of replacement for Wood in the Wolfbrook Motorsport Audi that he shares with fellow Kiwi driver Steve Brooks meanwhile remains unclear.
The rules clarification also states that any team’s driver combination can be changed, even those not impacted by the Supercars clash, “in the interests of sporting fairness”.
Adelaide Could Attract 20 Cars as Tigani Searches for “Interesting” One-Off
The final round of the GTWC Australia could welcome as many as 20 GT3 cars on the grid, up from the 15 that contested last weekend’s Sydney Motorsport Park round.
Whether or not that figure is reached could hinge on the plans of Volante Rosso Motorsport, which skipped the SMP event having originally revealed plans to field a second McLaren 720S GT3 Evo for the final two events of the year.
Additional entries are expected from EBM, which has been linked to running a second Porsche entry, and Tigani, which could field as many as six cars in total if the currently-mothballed Am class Mercedes-AMG for the Koundouris brothers appears.
The Sydney-based squad was linked with an opportunity to field current Red Bull Formula 1 reserve driver Yuki Tsunoda, as reported by Australian outlet Speedcafe, but any hopes of that deal coming to fruition were dashed as Red Bull refused its blessing.
However, team owner Nathan Tigani says his outfit still has the potential to field an extra car if an alternative high profile driver can be found to justify the outlay.
“Adelaide is a marquee event with a lot of international interest,” Tigani told Sportscar365. “We have been in discussions with a lot of people about fielding an extra car, but we’ll only do it if we can do it at the same level as the rest of our cars.
“There was interest in higher up places than myself in having Yuki in the car, and we were very happy to facilitate that, and find the Bronze driver to go with him.
“We have put certain things in place, and the car and the gentleman driver are still available, so if we could replace Yuki with a similarly popularly and interesting Pro for the event, it could still move forward.”
Source: Sports Car 365