Hamon TQs Q3 after Catanzani penalised for track limits
Jeff Hamon has taken the TQ for the third round of qualifying at the 1:8 GT World Championship but only after a post race time penalty was applied to his Serpent team-mate Andrea Catanzani for track limits. Having run out of fuel while on a TQ run in the opening qualifier this morning, and then suffering a flame out in Q2, Catanzani looked to bring the first day of qualifying in Sydney to a close by finally delivering a TQ run. Given a warning during the qualifier about track limits, later in the heat the Italian was called to serve a drive through penalty but didn’t have time to serve it. Crossing the line as the TQ, it initially looked like the result would stand but a protest was made and some time later he was informed he would have 3-seconds added to his time dropping him behind Hamon. While his team argued that the track limits rule was nothing they had come across before, and was something more applicable to Formula 1, they had no grounds to appeal the penalty. In all the drama it was top be a very good round for defending Champion Joern Neumann as the Sworkz driver posted the third fastest time ahead of Alex D’angelo and Natanaele Senesi. Having TQ’d the first two rounds, Toni Gruber would get 6th for the round having opted to go with used tyres.
