Calan Williams has continued his impressive season in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS Sprint Cup, claiming yet another class victory.
 
Alongside regular teammate Niklas Krütten for the series’ third sprint round of the 2023 season at Hockenheimring, Williams played a pivotal role in the duo’s charge to maintain their overall lead in the Gold Cup standings.
 
They didn’t have the best of starts though, qualifying for the first race in 16th overall and third in class, before brilliant stints from both drivers in the 34-lap opening race saw them jump to first in class and fifth overall.
 
While Krütten got off to a strong start and put the duo’s Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 in a good position, Williams carried out a wonderful drive himself, edging out Gold Cup rivals Cesar Gazeau and Adam Eteki by half a second.


Their second race didn’t go as smoothly as they qualified in second place for the class behind title rivals Aurelien Panis and Alberto di Folco, only for contact in the race to result in a puncture, dropping them down the order.
 
The duo ended up finishing 31st overall, but fourth in class – keeping them on top of the class standings by a slender lead over Panis and di Folco.
 
Williams wasn’t the only driver to experience success at the Hockenheimring on the weekend, with Jordan Love enjoying two class podiums in the same series.
 
Entered in the Silver Cup with fill-in Alain Valente in a Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO, Love enjoyed the class win on the Saturday race after the Haupt Racing Team pair converted their class pole position to an emphatic victory.


Love and Valente were a cut above the rest as they qualified four tenths faster than the next best Silver Cup team before reaching the chequered flag first in class and 12th overall, six seconds ahead of the 14th placed Jesse Salmenautio and Ezequiel Perez Companc.
 
For race two, Love and Valente qualified in second place and finished where they started as they crossed the line less than second behind Lorenzo Patrese and Alex Aka.
 
Their second place saw them lose a little bit of ground on the class leaders, however their race one victory kept them right in the mix to fight it out for the title.
 
The Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS Sprint Cup’s next round will be later this month at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Cheste, Spain.


Other Aussies competing internationally included Will Power and Lochie Hughes in the NTT IndyCar Series and USF2000 Series.
 
Unfortunately neither driver had a weekend to remember, with Power finishing the BitNile.com Grand Prix of Portland in 25th, 18 places lower than where he started. 
 
Right from the get-go, it was a difficult day for the Queenslander as he had an incident early in the race and was at least a lap down for the rest of the event, the reigning Indycar champion eventually finishing two laps behind winner Alex Palou.
 
Three-time Supercars Champion Scott McLaughlin also had a frustrating day, starting from second, but finishing the 110-lap affair in ninth.


As for Hughes, his hopes for a strong finish to the USF2000 season all but ended on the second race when he finished 13th, dropping to third on the overall standings as a result. 
 
Hughes entered the final round of the season at Portland, second on the standings and looked destined to finish there when he enjoyed a top five finish in the weekend’s opening race.
 
A rear wing failure in the second outing saw him tumble down to 13th and into third on the standings after Nikita Johnson finished on the podium, leaving Hughes lots of work to do in the final race of the season.
 
Starting in P11, Hughes could only make up one place in the final race of the season, three below Johnson, ultimately seeing him finish third for the season.
 
However, Hughes still finished as the highest placed rookie, with the next best driver being Mac Clark, who finished the year in fifth.