David Wall Dominates GT round at Bathurst 1000
New South Welshman David Wall has extended his championship lead after two dominant performances today, despite carrying an additional 75kg weight penalty after the first race in the Australian GT series at the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.
It was a very early start for David this morning with the first race of the Australian GT series kicking off at 8am.
In the cold but bright morning, David started the race from second place in his #38 PR Technology Racing Porsche GT3 Cup S, with Tony Quinn starting from pole position in his Aston Martin.
The safety car led the pack round for the rolling start and David got into position. Once the race got under way, David got the jump on Quinn and began pulling away from the pack.
Quinn dropped back to 3rd place but by the third lap he was in second and was rapidly closing the gap that David had managed to pull out.
David fought hard to keep the Aston Martin behind him until lap seven when an accident brought out the safety car. Unfortunately, the accident was big enough to mean that the race finished under the safety car.
Quinn spun his Aston Martin on the final lap, dropping him back to 11th position on the starting grid for the second race of the round.
David was able to significantly improve his lap time setting a fastest lap of 2:10.6408 but as a result of the parity adjustments made to his Porsche this was not enough to match Quinn's fastest lap of 2:10.0277.
Due to David taking out the win, he received a further weight penalty of 75kg for today's second race.
Race two was run in much milder conditions than the earlier race and David was again leading the race going into the first corner.
David was able to pull away from the pack slightly and held onto a comfortable lead while Quinn charged through to be in 2nd place at the half way point of the 30 minute race.
The parity adjustments that had been made to David's car were making it very difficult to drive, particularly on the straights.
Quinn was all over the back of David's Porsche, pushing him hard, but David was able to withstand the pressure and was still leading the race when the safety car was forced out with just minutes left in the race.
This meant that this race was also finished under the safety car, cutting short the exciting battle.
David, who will team up with Leanne Tander in the #333 Team McGrath V8 Supercar in tomorrow's Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, also completed a few laps in his V8 during today's only practice session in the lead up to tomorrow's big race.
The Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 kicks off tomorrow with a warm up session at 8am, with the 1000km race starting at 10:30am.
Seven will be offering extensive coverage of the race on Sunday starting at 7am, check your local guide for details.
-credit: dw
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