Bathurst winner fumes after 'dangerous' deluge

Four-time Bathurst 1000 victor Garth Tander was near bewildered by a determination to proceed moving down the information car successful the wettest conditions helium said helium has ever driven in.

Tander finished 2nd successful the opening contention of Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Powered by AWS astatine the Sandown SpeedSeries event, which was brought to a premature extremity 13 minutes shy of the scheduled one-hour region owed to dense rain.

The worst of the rainfall arrived with 20 minutes remaining. Shortly thereafter, Ross Poulakis spun his Mercedes-AMG GT3 connected the tally down to Dandenong Road.

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Moments later, Matt Stoupas spun astatine the penultimate corner, looping done the writer earlier arresting his Audi R8 LMS GT3 successful the gravel trap.

With Stoupas buried, the information car was drawn onto the circuit.

The rainfall lone got heavier and Poulakis went for different rotation connected the backmost straight, adjacent astatine dilatory speed.

The No.1 Audi R8 LMS GT3 of Sam Shahin and Garth Tander spins done the crook 2 and crook 3 chicane. (Daniel Kalisz)

As conditions worsened, the contention was declared astatine the 75 percent contention distance.

"That's the wettest [condititions] I've ever driven a contention car in," said Tander.

"We were nether information car and I was doing 100 kph and I couldn't support it successful a consecutive line. I astir looped it present [Turn 12] I astir looped it connected the backmost straight.

"Why that wasn't reddish flagged? I really said to the guys connected the radio, 'someone is going to clang nether information car' and idiosyncratic did connected the backmost straight.

"There's a work of care. I mean, we privation to spell racing, and perfectly recognize contention power and they've got a occupation to do, but erstwhile you've got Shane [van Gisbergen], myself, Dave Reynolds each connected the vigor saying this is mode excessively unsafe for information car… and past you've got Am[ateurs] retired determination trying to thrust and trying to thrust the car and survive. 

"These cars are not cheap, they're costly contention cars and we privation to contention them tomorrow. Yeah, we survived, that's the champion happening we tin say."

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The No.888 Mercedes-AMG GT3 that Shane van Gisbergen and Prince Jefri Ibrahim took to triumph astatine Sandown successful the archetypal of 2 races. (Daniel Kalisz)

Fraser Ross, who finished 3rd with Audi co-driver Liam Talbot, was likewise terse successful his appraisal of the race.

"I indispensable person drawn the abbreviated straw," helium chuckled.

"I've got to say, that's astir apt the worst conditions I've ever driven a car in. 

"The contention manager made the close determination to reddish emblem and shorten the contention due to the fact that that was conscionable plain unsafe towards the end."

Mercedes-AMG GT3 aviator Shane van Gisbergen won the contention with Prince Jefri Ibrahim of Johor for Triple Eight Race Engineering. 

GT World Challenge Australia volition instrumentality successful 1 much one-hour contention astatine Sandown connected September 18.

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