The 8-Year-Old Record Set to Tumble
While all eyes will be on the VHT S5000 Australian Drivers’ Championship and the outright lap record, another eight-year-old benchmark is set to come under fire this weekend, when the Shannons Motorsport Australia Championships hit Phillip Island.
This throwback Thursday we send it back to the Shannons Nationals at Phillip Island in 2013, where the Australian GTs were a highlight of the program.
Jack Le Brocq at the time was rising up the ranks, fresh from claiming the Australian Formula Ford Championship, finding himself aboard an Erebus Mercedes SLS GT3 for the first time in race conditions.
From his four starts that year for the squad, he claimed four wins from pole position with four fastest laps, although he didn’t have an entirely straightforward time of it.
In the opening one-hour-long race at Phillip Island that weekend, six other drivers also went under the existing lap record, namely Tony Quinn, Roger Lago, John Bowe, James Winslow, Klark Quinn and Justin McMillan.
Le Brocq ultimately set the benchmark in the Sunday race with a time of 1:27.1505sec, which will come under pressure this weekend from the likes of Chaz Mostert, Garth Tander and Jamie Whincup in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS.
For the record, the outright lap record time to look out for when the S5000s are racing will be 1.24.2215sec, which Simon Wills set aboard his Reynard 94D in 2000.
Mark Walker (administrator)
A vastly experienced Motorsport Public Relations operator, journalist, commentator and photographer, Mark brings his unique angle to The Race Torque in both words and imagery. As well as serving as our key photographer on the ground at major events around Australia (and overseas), Walker will often chime in with his unique and pin-point sharp viewpoint of the racing world via the keyboard too.
