Following a crash in qualifying at the final round of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS in Adelaide, the Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes-AMG GT3 to be driven by Prince Jefri Ibrahim and Nick Foster has been withdrawn.
During the opening 20-minute segment of qualifying, Ibrahim lost control under brakes approaching the final corner and hit the outside concrete wall. Ibrahim was able to extract himself from the car and went to the medical centre for precautionary checks.
After being assessed by the Triple Eight Race Engineering crew, it was decided the damage was too severe for the entry to continue.
Ibrahim was in contention for the Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS title as he sat 11-points behind Yasser Shahin entering the round.
In further bad news for the team, Jamie Whincup spun and collided with a tyre wall at the Senna Chicane in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 he will share with Prince Abu Bakar Ibrahim. However, this entry will be repaired and will continue to compete this weekend.
The opening 40-minute encounter for Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS commences at 2:05pm ACDT.
QUOTES
Andrew Simpson,
Triple Eight Race Engineering
“It’s done a chassis,” said Simpson.
“It went in pretty hard. Unfortunately, it has pushed the engine back and made a bit of a mess, so that’s going to be a re-shell for sure.
“We should be okay (repairing #88). We might be touch and go to get out for the first race, but we certainly will have it there for next two.
“The right-hand corner has been torn out with lots of carbon bits, which is not ideal. We’re struggling for parts for these things at the moment.
“We were just fortunate enough to have our two cars from Japan on the way back here. We managed to get the cars released from customs last Friday, then we went straight to The Bend to do our prep, we didn’t get a chance to turn a wheel and ended up straight here.
“Luckily we knew they were pretty good coming out of Japan.”