Townsville Australian GT: Talbot wins crash-affected opener

The Walkinshaw Porsche driver actually crossed the line second behind Audi driver Ash Samadi, but with Samadi sitting on a five-second penalty it was points leader Talbot that was declared the winner of a chaotic race.

The 40-minute affair was turned on its head on the first lap, when Mercedes driver Tony Bates was caught on the outside of a three-wide battle through the fast first turn. After a nudge from Steve Richards’s BMW, which was on the middle, Bates brushed the outside wall before cannoning into the inside wall.

He was out on the spot, and the lengthy clean-up meant the Safety Car soaked up the entire first stint of the race. That was bad news from the leading pros such as Audi drivers Kelvin van der Linde and Ash Walsh, who didn’t have the opportunity to stretch their legs and make up for their longer compulsory stop times, and great news for the single-driver amateurs with shorter stops.

As a result the likes of Samadi, Scott Taylor, and Marc Cini were filtered to the front of the field, while van der Linde’s co-driver Geoff Emery and Walsh’s co-driver James Koundouris were bumped to the back end of the Top 10.

Samadi and Taylor (STM Mercedes) scrapped over the race lead until the Safety Car appeared again with 12 minutes to go, this time to retrieve the stranded Andrew Macpherson/Brad Sheils Porsche. By that stage Talbot had worked his way to fifth on the road, while Samadi had been slapped with a five-second penalty for breaking formation too early at the start.

When the race restarted with six minutes to go Samadi did a belter to try and get as much as the five seconds up his sleeve as possible. He was never going to be able to go enough, though, which meant the fight for second was in fact the fight for the win.

It would up being a last lap thriller, Talbot sneaking past Taylor at the very last corner to secure victory.

Lamborghini driver Glen Wood rounded out the podium, ahead of Emery, Roger Lago (Lamborghini), and Koundouris. Samadi was dumped down to seventh by his penalty, ahead of Cini who was shuffled back after running wide while being passed by Talbot.

McLaren drivers Tony Walls and Tony Quinn rounded out the Top 10.