Mawer's pace in the seven year-old Lotus at Sydney Motorsport Park stunned Australian GT Championship regulars – including round winner Tony Quinn in the VIP Aston Martin! [goodpublicity.com.au photo]

Barton Mawer contested the Australian GT Championship round at Sydney Motorsport Park in Angelo Lazaris’s 2007 Lotus Exige knowing that his chances of winning the Trophy class were slim.

But he was there to prove a point: that he was competitive in national competition.

From the outset, Mawer delivered on his promise to ‘liven up’ the superseded model class in the seven year-old Lotus.

He qualified an impressive fourth, beaten only by two Audi R8s and a Lamborghini, all with around 100kW more than the diminutive Lotus. Behind were four Porsches, an Audi R8 and a Ford GT40.

But just seconds after the rolling start of Saturday's first hour-long race, the Lotus slowed to a crawl with a suspected electrical fault.

Mawer managed to coax the engine back to full power, but by then the rest of the field was far into the distance.

Adding to his woes was a pitlane drive-through penalty for taking a short-cut via the link road used to shorten the Grand Prix circuit into the North circuit. (He'd driven onto the link, which doubles as the paddock entry point, thinking that his race over.)

Luck was even against him when the race slowed behind the Safety Car while a damaged car was removed from the track.

He only just missed completing his compulsory pit stop before the Safety Car came around again, which would have regained the lost lap.

There was some compensation when Mawer was allowed to line up first behind the Safety Car for the restart.

He briefly held off eventual race winner Tony Quinn in the fearsome VIP Aston Martin Vantage!

Undeterred by what looked like a hopeless situation, Mawer took up the chase with a vengeance. From 22nd and last place on lap 21, he rocketed up to 12th outright and fifth in class when the chequered flag waved just 10 laps later!

Sunday's second race turned out to be the opposite of the first for Mawer. From 12th starting position, he was up to an amazing seventh outright by the end of the opening lap.

For the next six laps, he waged a David and Goliath battle with several more powerful GT cars.

The Lotus was no match for them along Sydney Motorsport Park's straights, but he was able to outbrake them in the tight bends and overtake with skill and daring through the high-speed curves.

Then the car began to slow as the engine lost power. Mawer made a pit-stop to see if the problem could be fixed quickly, but it couldn't, so he returned to the track to soldier on until the finish.

Afterwards he was upbeat about his GT championship cameo. He hopes it will help him to get drives in long-distance races, such as Bathurst 12-hour race and GT Championship, when professional co-drivers like him will be increasingly in demand by 'gentleman drivers'.

"The Lotus isn't a class winner at national level any more, even though Angelo Lazaris and I won the one-hour NSW Production Sports Car Championship race with it here in July,” he said.

"My main aim for this weekend was to prove that I had the pace to run at the front, and I'm confident that I achieved that.

"Tony Quinn told me that in the first race his team manager had said on the radio to overtake me quickly at the first Safety Car restart, so he could get a gap on his championship rivals.

“But he couldn't get past me until the next straight, where he could use his Aston Martin’s extra power!

"Thanks to Angelo Lazaris for letting me drive his Lotus solo this weekend, Prep'd Motorsport for their work on the car, and my new sponsor Mammoth Projects for coming on board.”

RESULTS

Qualifying: 4th in Trophy class; 12th outright (1min. 30.7154sec.)

Race 1: 5th in Trophy class; 12th outright

Race 2: 8th in Trophy class; 19th outright