Here is a short update on the second round of the 2018 World GT Series.

After the first round of the 2018 World GT Series, STAX Racing was fourth in the Teams’ Championship. The series traveled to Australia last week, to race on the legendary Mount Panorama Circuit. 

In Qualifying, Chris Shepherd was at the sharp end of the grid for most of the time. In the end, he started from P5, behind the two ACR Zackspeed drivers and Kevin Ryan. Nico Barclay started the race from tenth position.

During the race, Chris was able to closely follow the leaders, despite the fact that the McLaren lacks straight line speed compared to the Mercedes and Bentleys around him. Meanwhile, he was also building a gap to the drivers behind him. During the first half of the race, he had many exciting battles for positions and regularly ran in the Top 3. Unfortunately, after about half of the race, his engine died on him while braking for Turn 21. Chris suspected that he overreved the engine during downshifts. Without power, he coasted back to the pits and retired from the race. You can watch the onboard of Chris’ race below.

Nico in comparison had a relatively quiet race. After damaging his car on lap 7, he lacked the top speed to attack the front-runners early on. But while the gap to the leading cars increased, he was able to keep the likes of Borja Millan behind him all race. Towards the end of the race, Nico was able to to match the speed of Edonis Engineering’s Arne Schoonvliet, who finished the race in P3 behind Kevin Ryan and Risto Kappet. In the end, Nico finished the race in P4, 30 seconds behind the race winner.

Update: GPVWC published a race report on their website. Click here to read it.

After the second round of the champioship, STAX Racing is fourth in the Teams’ Standings. Chris’ DNF means that he dropped to 10th in the Drivers’ Championship, while Nico now lies in P4. The next race of the season will be held in Suzuka, Japan on April 19th, 2018.

Below you can find the broadcast and the results of the Australian round.

Broadcast

Results