Adelaide Australian GT: Bates wins crash-affected final

In a race that was affected by a lengthy red flag period, it was Bates that made the best use of the revised pit window to dive into the lane and make his compulsory stop as soon as it opened.

The Eggleston Mercedes driver then popped out in front of the Lamborghini of Roger Lago, holding off Lago across a shortened second stint to seal both his second win of the weekend and the round.

Lago was forced to settle for second, ahead of Objective McLaren driver Tony Walls and the Mercedes of Max Twigg. Liam Talbot finished fifth in the Walkinshaw Porsche, after a run-in with Greg Taylor late in the race.

The best two-driver crew was the Tekno McLaren of Fraser Ross and Come Ledogar. Ross worked his way up to second during the first stint, but a long CPS time dropped the car outside the Top 10 as the stops shook out. Factory driver Ledogar then put in as stirring drive to work his way back to sixth.

Fellow factory import Kelvin van der Linde, in a Melbourne Performance Centre Audi, finished down in ninth, after getting caught up in a huge Turn 8 crash that wiped Lamborghini drivers Tim Miles (R-EX) and Dean Canto (Huracan) out of the race.

The incident started when Miles swiped the wall at Turn 8, leaving Canto nowhere to go. The damage to the Turn 8 wall led to a long pause in the race, which effectively made it a 20-minute affair after the restart.

Race 2 winner Pete Major couldn’t replicate his Saturday heroics, the Australian GT rookie running inside the Top 5 early but losing a lot of time during his stop due to a clutch problem. He ended up 18th.