The first round of the Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge Australia Series was held at the famous Phillip Island Grand Prix circuit over the weekend as Marco Giltrap claimed top honours in the season opener.
 
The teenager was in fine form throughout the series’ three races, highlighted by his two victories and runner-up finish.
 
In what proved a fruitful race meeting for the series’ Kiwi competitors, Giltrap led the Team Porsche NZ charge as his compatriots Ronan Murphy and Zac Stitchbury were fighting for podiums all weekend.
 
However Giltrap’s biggest challenge came from Aron Shields, who won the second race of the round after edging out the round-winner by just six tenths of a second.
 
Earlier in the day, Giltrap had held bragging rights after comfortably beating the Queenslander by almost three seconds, while another Queenslander in Lachlan Bloxsom rounded out the podium ahead of Harrison Goodman, Murphy and Stitchbury.
 
Goodman then managed to squeeze on the podium in the remaining two races as he held off Murphy and Stitchbury in the second race behind Shields and Giltrap.
 
A thrilling final race saw three lead changes and plenty of moving and shaking take place over the course of the 25-laps with Giltrap ultimately sealing the win after Shields fell down the order midway through the race.


Shield’s slip up allowed Goodman to challenge for the win and although he did manage to gain the lead for two laps, the Victorian couldn’t make it stick as he eventually fell to Giltrap and Murphy.
 
Goodman was able to consolidate and hold on for his third podium though as Stitchbury crossed the line just half a second behind.
 
However the first round of the year was about the top placed Kiwi, who ended the round on top of the standings ahead of Shields and Goodman.
 
Click here to view full results of the weekend.
 
“I've finished with the round win and a couple of race wins - can't get much better stuff than that,” Giltrap said.
 
“We're pretty sure we had some pretty good pace coming into the weekend. There’s still some room for improvement as always, but that third rice was pretty hectic. I mean, it was a long one.
 
“There's a bit of tyre conservation and then the traffic got involved and we sort of slipped back to second.
 
"Ultimately, we knew we had the pace towards the end of the race and we kept strong and ultimately, we came on top.”
 
Sam Shahin dominated the Pro-Am class with a clean sweep of wins over reigning class champion Brett Boulton, while Matt Slavin’s multiple class podiums saw him secure third for the round.
 
It was a similar story in Class B as Lachy Harburg remained unbeaten for the whole weekend.
 
Click here to view the standings for the weekend.
 
The next round of the Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge Australia Series will be at Queensland Raceway on 28-30 April.