First across the line in the opening race of the Summerset GT New Zealand Championship at Taupo this afternoon, Marco Giltrap has taken the race win in the new Junior GT Pro class, while Rick Armstrong crossing the line second to take the win in Open Class.

The Junior Pro class within Open is designed for young drivers wanting to enter the series, albeit running their Porsche cars in a different specification – No traction  control and no ABS braking, whereas the Open cars have those driver aids.

Hunter Robb was second in Junior Pro, while the Open Class podium was rounded out by Sam Filmore and Joel Giddy.

In GT4, rookie William Exton won in his McLaren, followed by the Toyota Supra of Allan Sargeant, with James Sax in a Mercedes AMG in third.  

Having qualified in pole, off the race start, Armstrong held the lead, with Giltrap being overtaken for P2 by the Mercedes AMG of Joel Giddy.

The AMG of Giddy looking for a way past Armstrong for the opening handful of laps, while the sister AMG of Paul Pedersen slotted into P4, and then getting past Giltrap on track to slot into P3 on the road.

By lap four, the persistent Giddy and eased his Mercedes past the Porsche of Armstrong and into the lead at the end of the back straight.

From there for the next ten laps, the race settled with drivers getting into a rhythm.

The leaders pitting on lap 14, Armstrong’s pit stop was a fraction slow, and allowed Marco Giltrap to leap frog him in the running order.

While in GT4, Exton had a commanding lead of his fellow GT4 runners, and made his pitstop.

With the tyres of the Giddy AMG starting to wear, it allowed Armstrong to slot into the lead for open class, while Giltrap was a further six seconds up the road seemingly in his own race.

As the laps counted down, Sam Fillmore also got by the AMG of Giddy and into P2 for the Open Class race.

When the chequered flag dropped at the completion of one hour, it was Giltrap across the line first to win Junior Pro, Armstrong was next across the line to take the win for GT Open, with Exton winning the GT4 Class.

The Summerset GT New Zealand now look ahead to two shorter 30-minute races tomorrow.