It hasn’t taken long for Arise Racing GT to find its feet in the Fanatec GT Australia series, with the brand new Ferrari squad dominating its rookie season.
With two rounds to run Arise Racing duo Liam Talbot and Chaz Mostert lead the championship, after claiming their second win of the year at Phillip Island last weekend. The duo holds a 30-point lead over their nearest rival and will look to clinch the title with strong runs in the final two rounds at Sydney Motorsport Park and Bathurst.
To underline the team’s total performance package the second Ferrari 296 GT3, driven by Jaxon Evans and Elliott Schutte, sits third in the standings – only four points behind the second-placed Audi R8 driven by Will Brown and Brad Schumacher.
Evans and Schutte got their first win of the season at Phillip Island last weekend too, claiming the second race of the double-header weekend.
It’s a remarkable performance from the team, entering a new championship with two new cars and a quartet of drivers who had raced together before and proved to be the class of the field against an established grid of sports car racing veterans.
The team has shown remarkable consistency despite the challenges thrown up by the hour-long races, which include driver changes and a mixture of professional and amateur drivers on some of Australia’s fastest and most demanding tracks.
Having started the season with a win (and a one-two finish at that) in the team’s debut round at Phillip Island earlier in the year, they have carried on the success.
Both the Mostert/Talbot and the Evans/Schutte 296 GT3 claimed podium finishes in both races at The Bend Motorsport Park in June.
They then suffered a more challenging event at Queensland Raceway in August, with no podium results for either car, but valuable points were notched up.
It’s that combination of speed and consistency that has allowed Arise Racing to be so successful so quickly in the fast-paced world of GT racing. Clinching the championship will not be easy, despite the strong start to the season, with four races spread across the challenging Sydney Motorsport Park and the unforgiving Mt Panorama.
All the team’s competitors, which includes the successful Triple Eight Race Engineering, have more experience than Arise Racing at both tracks, especially Bathurst. But given the speed at which the team has adapted to its first season, it would be a brave call to bet against them in the final stages of the season.
The GT World Challenge Australia series will hit the track at Sydney Motorsport Park on October 18-20.
