Mies/Crick take out dramatic GT Island 101

Nurburgring 24 Hour winner Christopher Mies capitalised on an error from Trass Family Motorsport’s Graeme Smyth in the closing stages to take out the Phillip Island 101.

The #74 Jamec-Pem Racing Audi of Mies and Greg Crick had been in the mix in the early stages but were unable to keep up with Trass Family Motorsport Ferrari of Smyth and Jono Lester, which had dominated the majority of the three hour endurance.

However, a mistake on lap 74 saw Smyth drop to fourth handing the lead to a hard charging Mies, who went on to take the chequered flag.

Defending winners Tony Quinn and Holden Racing Team star Garth Tander trailed the Audi by 1.081s, with Smyth recovering to bring the Ferrari home in third for the New Zealand Trass Family Motorsport squad.

“It was a fantastic job from the team with strategy,” said Crick.

“We’ve got the longest pitstop in the field with our penalty and we honestly didn’t think we could win.

“But we were able to get that time back with the Safety Cars and what a driver Christopher is. He proved just how good he is again today.”

Lester had led from pole up until lap 41 when he handed over the duties to fellow Kiwi Smyth, who continued the team’s strong run building a lead of more than 30 seconds before the Safety Car was introduced for a second time.

Smyth managed to pull out another decent gap over again before a third Safety Car period in the latter stages, caused by an off from the Flying B Bentley of John Bowe and Peter Edwards, put the race in doubt and brought the #74 Audi into play.

The Trass Family Motorsport Ferrari seemed in command of the contest once racing resumed with half an hour of the race remaining but drama struck shortly after the restart when Smyth ran wide gifting the lead to Mies.

Tander applied pressure on Mies in the closing laps but the German managed to hang on to claim victory.

The #88 Maranello Motorsport Ferrari 458 GT3 of Tony D’Alberto came through to finish fourth ahead of the #36 Erebus Motorsport Mercedes of Geoff Emery and Max Twigg, who slipped back from challenging the podium places in the final third of the race.

There was plenty of drama throughout the race with the Safety Car called on the second lap when the Audi of Dean Koutsoumidis and the Lamborghini of Jan Jinadasa collided.

Contact involving the Ford GT of Kevin Weeks and V8 Supercars driver James Moffat saw them retire early on along with the Dean Canto/Andrew Taplin Aston Martin, which held third in the early running.

Peter Conroy and Michael Hector’s Porsches were involved in a collision which brought out the Safety Car and forced the pair into retirement.

RESULTS: Phillip Island 101 

Pos	No	Drivers	Team	Car	Laps
1	74	C.Mies/G.Crick	JAMEC PEM Racing	Audi R8 Ultra	88
2	7	A.Quinn/G.Tander	Darrell Lea	McLaren 650S GT3	88
3	27	J.Lester/G.Smyth	Trass Family Motorsport	Ferrari 458 GT3	88
4	88	T.D’Alberto/G.Denyer	Maranello Motorsport	Ferrari 458 GT3	88
5	36	M.Twigg/G.Emery	Erebus Motorsport	Mercedes Benz AMG SL	88
6	47	J.Koundouris/M.Marshall	Supabarn Supermarkets	Porsche 997 GT3-R	88
7	75	S.McLaughlan/S.Johnson	JAMEC PEM Racing	Audi R8 Ultra	87
8	11	T.Walls/W.Luff	Objective Racing	McLaren 650S GT3	87
9	73	M.Hovey/M.Campbell	HHH Racing/Triffid/ESP	Ginetta G55 GT3	87
10	37	K.Quinn/J.Webb	Darrell Lea	McLaren MP412-C	87
11	6	N.Antunes/R.Salmon	Skwirk/Beechwood Homes	Audi R8 Ultra	86
12	38	G.Taylor/B.Mawer	Adina Apartment Hotels	Audi R8 LMS	86
13	51	Andrew Macpherson	AMAC Motorsport	Porsche 997 GT3-R	86
14	69	T.Koundouris/S.Owen	Supabarn Supermarkets	Porsche 996 GT3-S	86
15	19	M.Griffith/D.Gaunt	Hogs Breath Café	Audi R8 LMS	85
16	33	S.Ellinghham/A.Heimgartner	Fastway Couriers	911 GT3 Cup Porsche	85
17	54	T.Alford/M.O’Connor	Donut King	Lotus Exige Cup R	84
18	63	D.Stutterd/M.Niall	Team FreeM	Lamborghini Gallardo	83
19	55	X.West/A.Jones	Malibu Boats	Porsche GT3 Cup	83
20	80	Peter Edwards/John Bowe	Flying B Racing	Bentley Continental	82
21	68	M.O’Donnell/J.McCorkindale	Thomson Geer Lawyers	911 GT3 Cup Porsche	36
22	12	B.Cook/T.Knight	Walz Group	Porsche GT3 Cup	82
23	93	P.Morris/B.Lynton	MARC Cars Australia	MARC Ford Focus	76
DNF	48	J.McMillan/J.LeBrocq	Interlloy M Motorsport	Reiter Camaro GT3	77
DNF	8	A.Deitz/C.McConville	Maranello Motorsport	Ferrari 458 GT3	67
DNF	14	A.Taplin/D.Canto	Taplin Real Estate	Aston Martin Vantage	62
DNF	71	D.Patterson/S.Richards	DPM Motorsport	Reiter Camaro GT3	61
DNF	46	J.Magro/N.Morcom	johnmagro.com	Lamborghini Gallardo	59
DNF	4	P.Conroy/S.Varney		GT3 Cup Car MY11	49
DNF	53	R.Gartner/M.Hector	SAFE-T-STOP	Porsche GT3 Cup	48
DNF	5	Kevin Weeks/James Moffat	Supaloc Racing	Ford GT 2011 GT3	9
DNF	77	Jan Jinadasa	JJA Consulting Group	Lamborghini LP560-4	2
DNF	2	Dean Koutsoumidis	EVA Racing/Evolve Technik	Audi R8 Ultra	2

 

 

 

VIDEO: Phillip Island 101 winner Christopher Mies