With the rain constantly stopping and starting on Sunday, competitors were unable to find consistency on the famous track  and many were unable to reach their personal bests or post competitive times.

 

However, the trying conditions opened up the door for anyone to get a good result, including the eventual winner of the event, Andrew Gott.

 

Behind the wheel of a new Porsche GT3R, the Phillip Island resident adapted well to the conditions to post a commanding 1:47.6234 on his seventh lap of the day.

 

While he wasn’t able to beat his time for the rest of the afternoon despite running another seven laps, the Porsche Club of Victoria representative was just one of two drivers to go sub one minute 50 seconds.

 

The other driver to go under one minute 50 seconds was Hailong Wang, who was part of a special group of drivers taking part in a track day activation and using the event to test the BMW M2 competition car.

 

Wang eventually posted his fastest time on his penultimate lap, falling just a second short of Gott’s event winning time with 1:48.6650.

 

Rounding out the top three fastest times for the round was Peter Nowlan, the NRC Bullet driver pipping local member Graham Bentley in the Audi TT RS by just under four hundredths of a second.

Click here to view more photos from the round.

Although many drivers were unable to condition themselves, Gott, who picked up a class win in the opening round of the championship, was thrilled he was able to claim outright honours.

“It’s fantastic. It’s nice to have won the round despite the conditions on Sunday being really iffy,” Gott said.

 

“We knew we would have rain on Sunday morning, but we thought it would clear up by 10am, which it kind of did, but then it just kept coming back with a number of spot showers occurring throughout the day.

 

“It’s a shame we didn’t get one pure dry session for the day, but it doesn’t really because it made for an interesting event and I got a good result.

 

“This win gives me plenty of confidence after I won my class last month. This championship is quite challenging as you’re up against so many cars who are strong in many different ways.

 

“This year we have a different car, so hopefully it will be enough and we can nail it at Sandown and get closer to the title.”

 

Wang echoed Gott’s comments and admitted it was a difficult day.

 

“I was a bit surprised that I was so fast as we were there for just a track day of sorts,” Wang added.

 

“I was well below my best because of the weather and honestly, I was just trying not to crash.

 

“I tried to keep myself safe and focused on just trying to post fast times, which it seems I was able to do."