Friday on the Mountain was a busy one for High Performance Media clients, with Scott Taylor Motorsport and Ashley Seward Motorsport running a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup in practice for the 12 Hour while Andrew Shah and TekworkX Motorsport completed practice, qualifying and their first race for the Toyota 86 series.
For the 12 Hour field, there were four practice sessions contested in total today, two of which were reserved for bronze class drivers in the field. For ASM and STM, that gave Scott Taylor and Geoff Emery extra running in the #222 Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia Porsche.
Craig Lowndes was given the driving duties in opening practice, his time of a 2:09:0 just one tenth of a second away from his time in Carrera Cup practice here last year. A worthy comparison given this weekend the team are running the same model of 911 GT3 Cup that was seen in 2021’s Carrera Cup Championship. The time was good enough to place 16th overall and first in class C.
Practice two was reserved for the bronze drivers, with Emery claiming all the driving time in the second session. The full-time Ashley Seward Motorsport racer in this year’s Carrera Cup Championship took a little bit of adjusting to the older specification car but was still quick enough to earn another P1 in class.
Third practice was also limited to bronze competitors, this time allowing Scott Taylor to enjoy a full session to himself. Taylor further cemented the team’s position as the leading Class C entry as the #222 once again topped their class.
The final practice ran from twilight and into the dark, as the field prepares for the most running under the cover of darkness in 12 Hour history. Alex Davison had to wait all day for his opportunity to hop behind the wheel, getting in for the 45 minute session to close out the day. Davison set the fastest time of the day for car #222 and made it four from four in topping Class C.
TekworkX were on the money in their sole practice of the weekend, placing two cars inside the top 10 and a third just outside. Rossi Johnson and Jayden Wanzek both took a few laps to get their eye in before pumping out a series of ever improving lap times which put them ninth and tenth at the end of the session. Shah was inside the top five for the majority of practice and even picked up a few purple sectors, proving particularly rapid in sector one. As the track improved, Shah was at the wrong stage of his run to capitalise and fell to 13th as a result.
Qualifying saw the trio of drivers all struggle to find the top 10 amid an extremely close field where only a second covered sixth to 21st. After the early fliers Shah was the frontrunner from the team, before an improvement midway through the session vaulted Johnson ahead. Wanzek continued to close the gap in his first appearance in the category at this venue. The trio finished 13th, 14th and 17th with just 0.13 seconds covering them
Race one was yet another Safety Car affected race for Toyota 86, carrying on from round one. Wanzek was the standout for TekworkX in the three green flag laps that were achieved, as he rose up to finish 14th. Johnson finished 13th and was right on the back of a big battle engulfing the back half of the top 10, but due to the Safety Car he was unable to capitalise. Shah was baulked slightly on the opening laps and in turn passed by a couple of cars, the lack of available laps prevented him from recovering as he finished in 16th.
Saturday at the Bathurst 12 Hour brings the final two races for Andrew Shah and the TekworkX Motorsport team while Scott Taylor Motorsport and Ashley Seward tackle their final practice sessions before qualifying.