GWR Australia is all set for this weekend’s fifth round of the Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup Australia at The Bend Motorsport Park, with a driver swap in one of the team’s three cars.
While Michael Almond and Dylan O’Keeffe will stay behind the wheel of their respective #25 and #88 machines, Indiran Padayachee will make his first start of the season in the #45 entry, replacing his son Duvashan who has driven the car for the first half of the season.
While it will be Indiran’s first race meeting in the new Type 992 GT3 Cup car, he tested the car at the bend earlier in the year and also had an impressive showing in the opening round of the Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge at Sydney Motorsport Park, where he ran inside the top five in the Pro-Am Class.
“It was always the plan for Dad and I to share the car this year, and since he did a test day at The Bend earlier this year, it made sense for him to step in for this round,” Duvashen said.
“It’s a really good time for him to be driving the Carrera Cup car – the GWR team has the cars going well and even though Dad hasn’t done any Carrera Cup racing yet, he’s been doing a lot of driving in other categories. He and I did the 4 Hour at Sydney Motorsport Park earlier in the year, and he also raced in the Bathurst 12 Hour.”
The GWR team recently completed a test day at Sandown and O’Keeffe said while the track is different in character to The Bend, the team still gathered valuable information due to the day’s changeable conditions.
“One of the best things about the Sandown test was that the conditions changed throughout the day, so we were able to accumulate both wet and dry running,” O’Keeffe said.
“You can’t normally schedule wet weather testing, so the fact we were able to turn some laps on a wet track and learn how these new Type 992 GT3 Cup cars behave in those conditions will certainly be an advantage if it rains for any rounds this year.”
Meanwhile, Michael Almond is hoping for a return to home soil will yield some positive results, after a disappointing previous round in Townsville where he was forced to miss the final race of the weekend after a crash in Touring Car Masters.
This weekend’s round will feature a typical three race format, with the second race on Sunday morning to be contested over an extended 20-lap distance.
Carrera Cup Round 5 Schedule
Friday, 29 July
10:50am – Practice 1 (25 min)
1:25pm – Practice 2 (25 min)
Saturday, 30 July
10:30am – Qualifying (20 min)
3:05pm – Race 1 (11 laps)
Sunday, 31 July
10:20am – Race 2 (20 laps)
2:25pm – Race 3 (11 laps)
