The Motorsport Australia GT Championship will welcome an international star for its season opener later this month with German Christopher Mies to re-join reigning champion Yasser Shahin.
Taking place at Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit as part of the Shannons Motorsport Australia Championships, the event will see the duo will be behind the wheel of a recently upgraded Audi R8 LMS GT3 evo II.
This month’s outing won’t be the first time Mies and Shahin have joined forces either after they dominated at the season finale at the Bathurst 1000 late last year and won both races – Mies also ran in the Supercheap Auto TCR Australia Series during the six-day event.
The German will enter this month’s event with plenty of recent experience under his belt after completing pre-season tests for the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS – a category to which he will contest the full 2022 season in.
However, Phillip Island will be the first time he runs in the latest Audi model and the German was excited to race in the first of three confirmed events alongside Shahin.
“I am quite excited. Phillip Island has always been a good place for us, and the new car should be even better at those types of racetracks,” Mies said.
“We had a successful and great start to our partnership at Bathurst. Yasser is one of the fastest guys I have met and very eager to become even better. He almost works harder on data and video than I do, which shows me his dedication.
“Obviously, I’ve driven the new Gen2 a lot in testing, but this will be the first official race for me with the car. I am sure we still have to fine tune it during the weekend but no question that we will find a good balance for the first meeting.
“I always like to come to Australia and when the chance came up, I was the first to say yes. We need to see how the calendar works out but for the moment I’m in for three rounds.
“If there’s a chance to do more, I’ll do it.”
The Motorsport Australia GT Championship will have 20 entries lining up for the opening round, which takes place at the Shannons Motorsport Australia Championships in Phillip Island on 18-20 March.
