Phillip Island Australian GT: Morcom/Denyer take 101 victory

The McLaren duo won thanks to a clean two-stop strategy, book-ended by stints from Morcom. Ultimately that’s all it took for the #59 Tekno-run entry to sneak home two-tenths ahead of Shane van Gisbergen/Klark Quinn (Darrell Lea McLaren) and five seconds clear of Dom Storey/Peter Hackett (Eggleston Mercedes).

Star-studded battle at the front

The first stint of the race saw a star-studded, four-way battle at the front between van Gisbergen, Spengler, Baird, and Molina.

Pole-sitter van Gisbergen was unable to shake Spengler in the early stages, the pair running within a second for the first 13 laps of the race.

At that stage Baird decided to get involved, passing Molina for third before going past Spengler for second a lap later.

The foursome then ran within a second of each other for until the pitstop window opened on Lap 20, van Gisbergen holding onto the lead from Baird, Spengler, and Molina in what was a thrilling battle at the front.

Once the window opened, the #37 McLaren, #222 Mercedes, and #1 Audi all pitted, the gun drivers handing over to Klark Quinn, Scott Taylor, and Tony Bates respectively.

Spengler stayed out in the lead, before his chances of victory went up in Pirelli smoke on Lap 32 when the M6 blew a front-right tyre.

Tyre failures dominate middle stint

The Spengler car wasn’t the only one to have a tyre failure. Blown Pirellis was a common theme throughout the middle stages of the race, with no fewer than seven right-hand side failures during that portion of the race alone.

Affected cars front-running entries such as the Molina/Bates Audi and the Graeme Smythe/Tony D’Alberto Ferrari, as well as the BMW Team SRM M6 of Max Twigg and Steve Richards, the Lamborghini of Roger Lago and David Russell, and the Lamborghini of Alex Rullo and Nick Percat – which actually suffered two failures.

Even eventual race winner Morcom had a right-rear failure, although it happened right as he was coming in to pit and hand over to Denyer on Lap 31, meaning it had no real impact on the team’s position.

There were more tyre issues in the final stint too, with Marco Bonanomi’s Audi doing a right-rear, before the Haber/Spengler car had its second failure of the day, this time on the left.

Garth Tander and Glen Wood both had failures in the closing stages as well, taking the total to 11 for the day.

Giz on a charge, Morcom holds on

The race to finish essentially started with 30 laps to go, with Morcom emerging from second round of stops in the lead after a remarkably consistent first two stints, 30s ahead of Dom Storey in the #63 Mercedes and Dan Gaunt in the Quinn Aston.

By that stage van Gisbergen was already on a charge. He took over the #37 McLaren from Quinn again on Lap 67, re-joining at the back of the Top 10.

With 20 laps to go van Gisbergen was already up to fourth, 28 seconds from the lead and threatening to run right over the top three.

He did a decent job of it, too. With nine laps to go fourth became third when Gaunt made a late stop from P2 for fuel, and third then became second when van Gisbergen passed fellow Kiwi Storey.

As the laps counted down, it even looked as if van Gisbergen might just get through. But in the end Morcom did enough to hold off the #37 McLaren by just two tenths of a second.