A handful of Aussies were in action around the world last weekend, with Will Power and James Wharton walking away with the best results across their respective categories.
Power played a big role in a Team Penske clean sweep at the NTT IndyCar Series in Iowa.
With the team proving a dominant force in oval-circuit racing this season, Power stormed his way to not only one pole position, but two on Saturday to ensure he was in prime position for both races.
In the first of two races, Power led from the front for the opening 119 laps, before losing the position firstly to teammate and two-time champion Josef Newgarden and then other teammate and Supercars Champion Scott McLaughlin on the restart.
Not only did he lose two positions, but the restart also saw the reigning champion fall back to fifth – a position he was unable to improve on until the end of the race – while Mclaughlin impressed with a second-place finish.
Unfortunately, Power was unable to convert the pole position into a race win once again in race two, with Newgarden making it two wins from two to complete the Penske clean sweep.
Power struggled with car balance throughout the early stages of the race, dropping positions as a result before a setup change at the pitstop changed the narrative, allowing the Australian to storm his way back into second place.
A race win could have been on the cards if it weren't for a slow pit stop, but the podium finish rounds out a positive weekend for the team.
Mclaughlin was unable to make his way back on the podium for race two, settling for fifth place after originally qualifying in second behind Power.
Meanwhile, James Wharton secured two podium finishes as the Italian Formula 4 Championship made its way to Circuit Paul Ricard.
In the opening race, Wharton was battling for third place throughout, while conserving his tyres for later races – crossing the line in the same position to pick up his first of two podiums.
Unfortunately, the second race saw resulted in a DNF to his name, but he was able to lead for the vast majority of race three before his engine shut off in the later stages, losing the position and crossing the line in P2.
Another Aussie Gianmarco Pradel claimed two top 10 finishes across the weekend in races one and two – with that being the best result outside of Wharton, with Jack Beeton and Griffin Peebles unable to break through the top 15 on both occasions.
Moving from France to Japan, Broc Feeney, Ben Porter and Andrew Macpherson competed in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS – with Feeney grabbing the best result of the three.
Alongside usual Triple Eight Race Engineering teammate Prince Jefri Ibrahim, the duo came home to finish in 11th place in race one, while dropping to 13th for the final race of the weekend in their Mercedes-AMG GT3.
Both Porter and Macpherson competed in the same Amac Motorsport #51 entry much like the previous rounds but were only able to manage 22nd in race one, before dropping to 25th in the second encounter.