A strong field of 22 cars has been confirmed for the Mobil 1 Australian Production Cars and Monochrome GT4 Australia Series at this weekend’s Shannons SpeedSeries round at Sandown International Raceway.
The combined field will see seven entries entered in GT4, while the remaining 16 competitors will make up the Australian Production Cars field – many of which were at the last round at Queensland Raceway.
Some of the familiar names making the return in GT4 include series leader Shane Smollen, who will be riding solo after having Lachlan Mineef by his side for the previous round, as will Mark Griffith, who has had Nash Morris sharing driving duties for the last two rounds.
Karl Begg in the McLaren 570S and BMW F82 M4 driver Steve Jukes were also at Queensland Raceway, while Renee Gracie will be returning in the Ginetta G55 after running with the category earlier in the year in Sydney.
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One driver who wasn’t in Queensland and will be making his series debut is Randall Industries’ Jacob Lawrence, who will also be behind the wheel of a BMW F82 M4.
Jukes and Lawrence won’t be the only entries carrying the BMW M4 moniker this weekend, with both Iain Sherrin and Grant Sherrin running their familiar BMW M4s as they once again lead the Australian Production Cars field from 1st and 3rd outright and 1st and 2nd in class X.
The brothers’ biggest challenges across the weekend will likely come in the form of Dean Campbell and Cameron Crick in the DA Campbell Transport Mitsubishi Evo X and the TyrePlus Burleigh Ford Mustang of Coleby Cowham and Lindsay Kearns.
Cowham and Kearns are second in the outright standings and leading in A2, the series’ biggest class for the weekend, which is set to be highly competitive with a further four cars entered.
Also amongst the A2 ranks is Anthony Levitt, currently third in the class standings behind Andrew and George Miedecke who will miss the Sandown round.
Coming down from Queensland, Levitt will be hoping to score some solid points at Sandown in the hopes of closing the gap to Cowham and Kearns to keep himself in contention.
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“It’s a long way to come from Queensland, but we’re really looking forward to it – especially since it will be nice to have a bit of a break from work,” Levitt said.
“Last year was my first time at Sandown and it was very wet as we all know, making it a very eventful round – I have never driven that fast being unable to see anything due to the fog and rain.“I am really hoping the rain doesn’t come this weekend, but if it does, then at least we are prepared – the Mercedes C63 is very good in the wet and hooks up well.
“Sitting third, we don’t have to push hard – we just want to finish every race and capitalise on every point.
“Obviously we can’t chase down Coleby and Lindsey as they are much quicker than us and the car has years of development on us, but if we can come down, finish every race and get as many points as we can so we can move up the standings, then I will be happy.”
Other notable names entered in the Australian Production Cars ranks include Jake Camilleri and Allan Jarvis in the C Class, Scott Turner and Rob Rubis in the B1 Class and Paul Buccini in the A1 class.
The combined category will have practice and qualifying on Friday before four 30-minute races across Saturday and Sunday, their first, second and fourth of which will feature in the Stan Sport live broadcast.
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The Mobil 1 Australian Production Cars and Monochrome GT4 Australia Series hold their fourth round of the 2023 season at Sandown Raceway this weekend as part of the Shannons SpeedSeries.