Melbourne Performance Centre wins all GT3 titles in Australia with Audi

Audi R8 LMS GT3

Turning point in Australia: The more than 2,000-kilometer journey to New Zealand’s Hampton Downs race track was well worth it. Although the Melbourne Performance Centre, a long-standing team, was 30 points behind in second place in the standings ahead of the GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS final with Broc Feeney/Brad Schumacher, giving up was not an option. Both drivers demonstrated their skills already in the qualifying sessions for both races: in the first qualifying, Audi driver Feeney beat his rival and championship leader Jaxon Evans in a Ferrari by 0.146 seconds in the battle for pole position. In the second qualifying session, Brad Schumacher in the Kelso Electrical Team MPC Audi was even 0.799 seconds faster than last year’s champion Liam Talbot in the Aston Martin – meaning that the best Audi, number 888, started both races from pole position. In the first race, Feeney and Schumacher secured their third victory of the season, with third place going to Steve Brooks/Ryan Wood in the Wolfbrook Team MPC Audi. The race got off to a chaotic start when championship leader Elliott Schutte in the Ferrari collided with Brooks and fell back, while Brad Schumacher ran wide and lost the lead to Talbot, who soon built up a ten-second lead. After the pit stops, Feeney, who had replaced Schumacher in the cockpit, was 17 seconds behind the leading Aston Martin. The 23-year-old pro driver managed a convincing comeback in the Audi. Four minutes before the end of the race, he overtook the British sports car and won by just under five seconds. This meant that Feeney/Schumacher had halved their deficit in the standings to 15 points. On Sunday, the driver duo secured their fourth victory of the season, followed by Wood/Brooks. Feeney built up a lead right after the start, before the safety car led the field for the first time after a collision. After the pit stops, Schumacher was in fourth place in the Audi, while Elliott Schutte led in the Ferrari. After another safety car phase towards the end of the race, Schumacher overtook the leading Ferrari two laps before the finish and celebrated his fourth victory of the season. However, Schutte made a mistake when he accelerated too early at the restart after the caution period. This resulted in a time penalty, which not only cost him second place in the race, but also dropped him back to seventh position. With a deficit of four points, he and Ferrari teammate Jaxon Evans eventually had to give up all hopes of winning the title after the duo had been at the top of the Pro-Am standings since the start of the season. For MPC and Audi, this was their ninth title win in the Australian sprint racing series after 2011, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023. In addition, Melbourne Performance Centre also won the Pro-Am and Am team classifications, the Am driver classification with Renee Gracie, and the Trophy class with Gary Higgon/Matthew Stoupas this year, thus winning all five classifications. The Audi R8 LMS scored another trophy in Thailand. Team B-Quik Absolute Racing ended the Thailand Super Series season on the podium. At the finale in Buriram, local driver Kiki Sak Nana and Karol Basz from Poland shared the team’s Audi R8 LMS, as they had done at the season opener at the same venue. The driver pairing finished third in Sunday’s one-hour race.

Audi RS 3 LMS (TCR)

Title successes in Asia: Chang Chien Shang secured the title in the Audi RS 3 LMS at the TCR Asia finale. At the Hunan International Circuit in China, the touring car driver finished second in the first race and third in the second race. This means that the Audi driver, who has achieved three victories this year, has a 39-point lead over Hyundai driver Benny Santoso in the standings after six events. The RevX Racing team, which prepared and fielded the Audi RS 3 LMS, also won the team classification in the racing series. Another title was won by an Audi customer team in TCR China, which held its sixth event in Zhuzhou. Liu Zichen won the Challenge classification for the 326 Racing Team in the first race in an Audi RS 3 LMS. In the second race, Wu Yifan was third-best driver in the Pro classification in an Audi from the 326 Racing Team, while Liu Zichen was third-best Challenge driver. This makes Liu Zichen the winner of the 2025 TCR China Challenge. Overall, the Audi RS 3 LMS has won two overall titles and 15 class titles worldwide this year. In the TCR UK, Cedric Bloch achieved two class podium finishes in the Audi RS 3 LMS at the final round. The Simon Green Motorsport driver finished second in the first race at Brands Hatch and third in the second race in the Gen1 classification for older TCR touring cars.

Coming up in the next weeks

13–16/11 Macau (MAC), round 2, TCR Australia
13–16/11 Macau (MAC), Greater Bay Area GT Cup
14–15/11 Misano (I), round 4, TCR European Endurance
14–16/11 Macau (MAC), FIA GT World Cup
14–16/11 Barcelona (E), round 5, TCR Spain
14–16/11 Barcelona (E), round 6, Campeonato de España GT
15–16/11 Fuji (J), round 7, Super Taikyu Series