George King heads into the motorsport offseason confident that he has given teams something to ponder when deciding their lineups for 2026, after producing another best performance of the year at the final round of GTWC Australia.
The Briton has improved with every one of his six outings in the GT competition this season, and topped things off by displaying some searing pace in the #55 Geyer Valmont Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 throughout the double-header weekend at Hampton Downs.
The trip to New Zealand’s North Island not only presented King with a sixth unfamiliar circuit of the campaign, but also a new stamp in his racing passport as he added another country to his collection. The GTWC Australia series was also making its first appearance at Hampton Downs in seven years, levelling the playing field for the Briton even as the already ultra-competitive field increased in size.
An additional couple of hours of pre-event testing allowed King to get his bearings on the challenging circuit, and he continued to up his pace as the meeting went on, eventually posting the fastest time of all in the second free practice session on Friday. With a top five position from FP1 and a narrow miss on the fastest five in the final, Pre-Qualifying, session of the day, the Essex native headed into the competitive portion of the weekend in good spirits.
“We were fast right out of the gun, which was evident as Tigani topped every session of the day,” King noted, his P1 having come between similar achievements for Mercedes factory driver Jayden Ojeda. “I was feeling really good in the car and seemed to gel with the circuit, which resulted in my times improving throughout the day. Topping the timing board in FP2 was a great confidence boost, and I was only just knocked out of the top five in FP3/ Pre-Qualifying while running on old tyres. Despite that, my time was only four-tenths off P1, which just underlines how closely-matched the top cars are.”
Combining his work on the set-up of the #55 machine and sharing track knowledge with stand-in co-driver Marcel Zalloua, King went into day two of the meeting looking to repeat his earlier performance without putting too much pressure on himself. The approach worked as he again posted a top-five lap time, and was once more just a handful of tenths off a possible pole position, to secure the inside of row three for both races that made up the final event of the season.
“It was a good day,” he reported later. “The [pole-winning] Audi had a Balance of Performance break here and look really strong, so I’m happy with my pace and grid position. It was also nice to be the fastest Mercedes driver in qualifying, ahead of Jayden, as it further underlines the progress we’re making.”
Zalloua started race one on Sunday morning and provided a safe pair of hands as he kept the yellow-and-blue Mercedes in touch with the leading group prior through to the all-important driver changes. Instead of being able to rejoin in a comfortable fifth position, however, King was made to wait an agonising 20+ seconds in pit-lane as a litany of issues combined to drop him to the tail of the field.
That misfortune, however, provided the platform for a recovery drive that not only saw the Briton catch up to the pack, but make a series of decisive overtaking moves to eventually take the chequered flag in 10th place.
“Although the result doesn’t show it, I was actually really happy with how the stint went,” an upbeat King confirmed. “Rejoining dead last didn’t look to promising, but the car was great and I was able to put in some super-consistent and crazy-fast laps in between picking off the backmarkers. Although we missed another potential podium opportunity, my best lap was only a couple of tenths off the fastest of the race, and being fastest Mercedes again was confirmation of my own pace.”
Taking the start of the weekend’s second race, King had his sights set on a clean getaway that would allow him to keep in touch with, and perhaps pass, cars at the head of the field. That idea proved short-lived, however, and his hopes of finishing a promising first GTWC Australia campaign with a maiden podium were dashed in dramatic fashion as the #55 Tigani Motorsport car was taken out on lap one of the season finale.
“When the lights went out, I got another amazing start and almost managed to slip down the inside of Ryan Wood’s Audi, before having to back out in order to avoid being squeezed into the pitwall,” King explained. “Despite that, I had a good exit from T1 and was able to defend from Jayden, who had dropped in behind me, but was also defending from Damon Leitch. Braking late into T2, I just remember seeing the Only Fans Audi sideways in my left wing mirror and thinking “This is it… what can I do now?”
“Damon had tried a very ambitious move, looking to brake between myself and Jayden, who was coming alongside me on the inside. As I was in the middle of the track, I have no clue how Damon though that was going to stick…. He clipped Jayden’s front wheel, which then caused him to lose control even further, sliding out into my rear right wheel, damaging the body work as well as the suspension. The impact pushed the tyre into itself, breaking the upright and also popping the driveshaft out off the diff. I had no drive and physically couldn’t bring the #55 back to pit-lane in an effort to continue the race…”
Forced to watch the rest of the race from the Tigani garage, King was both pleased and frustrated to see his team-mates finish fourth, which became third when post-race penalties were handed out. It was a particularly galling end to the year for King who, through the previous round at Shell V-Power Motorsport Park, had maintained a 100 percent scoring record in his debut season ‘down under’.
“On the formation lap, I was feeling good and was extremely keen to get involved in the race,” he sighed. “Therefore it is so disappointing, not only to DNF and miss out on another dig at the podium — which we clearly had a solid chance of achieving — but also to finish this amazing season on such a downer.
“Despite that, I was really happy with my performance this weekend — and it almost feels like a win to be able to show off my pace to all the other drivers and teams. I feel like I definitely turned some heads here this weekend, which shows how far I’ve come over the course of the season.”
The weekend’s results leave King sixth in the final championship standings, while Tigani Motorsport claim third overall in the teams’ championship, helping Mercedes land a seventh-successive GT World Challenge title based on results from each regional series around the globe.
While he explores his options for next season, King would like to thank Tigani and sponsor Geyer Valmont for allowing him to be a part of the team in 2025 and guiding his development as both a driver and person. Similar sentiments are directed at both Marcel Zalloua and original co-driver Sergio Pires, with whom it was an absolute pleasure to share a car. Team personnel, engineers and mechanics are thanked for both pushing King on to higher levels of performance and picking him up when things were tough, while family and personal sponsors get love for making it all possible.
King’s next race appearance is currently scheduled for the Dubai 24 Hours over the weekend of 16-18 January 2026.
