Barton Mawer will challenge Australian GT Championship regulars at Sydney motorsport Park this weekend [www.goodpublicity.com.au photo]

Next weekend’s round of the Australian GT Championship at Sydney Motorsport Park will feature a David and Goliath battle in the Trophy class.

Barton Mawer, making a cameo appearance in Angelo Lazaris’s Lotus Exige GT3, will take on the series regulars in their Audi R8s, Porsches and Lamborghinis.

The rare Lotus, one of only four Exige GT3s built, is well known to Australian GT fans.

It has contested the national series on and off since 2007, often with Mawer as a seeded professional co-driver with Lazaris in longer races.

But this time the former international racer will be driving the supercharged 1.8-litre Lotus solo in the hour-long heats on Saturday and Sunday.

The drive came about thanks to a generous offer by Lazaris, and sponsorship from Sydney commercial fit-out company Mammoth Projects.

Mawer is relishing the prospect of carving up the bigger cars in the Trophy class for superseded GT3 machines – and possibly getting among the outright Championship class contenders, given half a chance!

“Angelo didn’t have to ask me twice if I wanted the drive!” he said.

“The Lotus should be competitive in its class, even though it’s one of the oldest cars in the field and at least 1000kW down on the Audis and Lamborghinis.

“But it’s very quick around corners, and great under brakes.

“I managed to qualify it on the second row for the GT Championship round at Phillip Island in 2011.

“The outright cars are a lot faster now, but we should liven up the Trophy class.

“And if there’s a sprinkle of rain, we might give a few Championship cars some hurry-up!”

Mawer and Prep’d Motorsport, which prepares the Lotus and pit crews it on race weekends, had a successful dress rehearsal last month in the NSW Production Sports Car Championship round at SMP.

Lazaris put the car into second place during the opening stint of the one-hour race before handing over to Mawer, who went on to score a comfortable win.

“The State round was a good practice run for the GT Championship round, the only difference being that I’ll stay in the car at the compulsory pit stop,” Mawer said.