{"id":525,"date":"2025-09-10T16:34:55","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T16:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gkracing.co.uk\/?p=525"},"modified":"2025-09-21T16:37:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T16:37:34","slug":"consistent-king-chases-gtwc-australia-top-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gkracing.co.uk\/?p=525","title":{"rendered":"CONSISTENT KING CHASES GTWC AUSTRALIA TOP FIVE"},"content":{"rendered":"

An enforced change of co-driver did little to halt George King\u2019s pursuit of a top five championship finish in the <\/span><\/span>GTWC Australia <\/span><\/span>series, as <\/span><\/span>he maintained his 100 percent scoring record at Shell V-Power Motorsport Park.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Briton had scored in each double-header outing through four rounds, but headed to the South Australian circuit colloquially known as \u2018The Bend\u2019 without regular team-mate Sergio Pires, who had to be replaced by former Tigani Motorsport pilot Marcel Zalloua after failing to recover from a knee injury. Although the outing would be Zalloua\u2019s first appearance in the GTWC series since May, he ended that weekend with a podium finish in the #44 Geyer Valmont Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO from Sydney Motorsport Park and, as Pires\u2019 co-driver in last season\u2019s run to the AM-class title, ensured a like-for-like substitution alongside the less-experienced King, who had not had the chance to drive the circuit prior to race weekend.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A<\/span><\/span>s a result, the 24-year-old again spent a large part of the pre-event test acclimatising to the 18-turn International Circuit layout, consistently lowering his best time to find himself mixing in with the assorted factory \u2018pro\u2019 drivers and V8 Supercar regulars who were effectively racing \u2018in their back yard\u2019. <\/span><\/span>Despite being buoyed by his performance, however, King was still up against it in a short qualifying session that only allowed a couple of windows for the perfect lap \u2014 something neither he nor Zalloua were able to produce.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTesting went well and I thought we were looking good for qualifying, but the short session meant there were only had a couple of laps to put it all together,\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/span> the erstwhile Radical and Ultimate Cup champion confirmed. <\/span><\/span>\u201cAs I was still learning from the data we\u2019d gathered from the practice sessions, it was hard enough to put a perfect lap together and a small mistake cost a chunk of time on my best lap.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Poor qualifying results from both drivers in a highly-competitive field left the #55 <\/span><\/span>Geyer Valmont Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO<\/span><\/span> mired mid-grid for the <\/span><\/span>weekend\u2019s two <\/span><\/span>races, <\/span><\/span>with King posting the ninth-fastest time in the first session and Zalloua tenth next time out. The veteran, however, kept his nose clean in the opening stint of race one, climbing to seventh on the road before handing over to King, who rejoined in fifth place courtesy of the leading cars taking \u2018success penalties\u2019 in the form of additional time at their pit-stops.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

With 29 seconds to make up on fourth place, however, the Briton didn\u2019t have enough track time to improve the #55\u2019s position any further, but at least had the satisfaction of closing the gap over the duration of his stint, <\/span><\/span>before dropping back again in order to let Tigani team-mate Jayden Ojeda \u2014 who remains in contention for the overall title and had been closing on King after fitting fresh tyres at his pit-stop \u2014 claim vital extra points.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was fun racing with Jayden but, at the end of the day, we\u2019re not fighting them for a championship position, so I didn\u2019t make it crazy hard for him to pass,\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/span> King admitted. <\/span><\/span>\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t have been that way had it not been a Tigani car, and finishing sixth from tenth after a clean race was still a good result.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

W<\/span><\/span>ith the driving order reversed for race two, King got the start and made a good job of sticking with the lead group before being held up by a slower car. Once past, however, the Briton homed back in on those at the head of the field, rising to fifth place before the end of his stint \u2014 only for his work to be undone when, <\/span><\/span>shortly after a safety car had bunched the field,<\/span><\/span> Zalloua was hit by another competitor. With minor damage to the <\/span><\/span>#55<\/span><\/span> Mercedes, the Australian \u2014 co-founder of team sponsor Valmont \u2014 struggled to achieve maximum pace but slotted into sixth place and remained there until the chequered flag as the crew waited to hear the stewards\u2019 decision on potential penalties.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMarcel had a good restart, but was clearly knocked out of the way by the #1 car<\/i><\/span><\/span>,\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/span> King <\/span><\/span>explain<\/span><\/span>ed. <\/span><\/span>\u201cRight<\/i><\/span><\/span>ly, they got a 15-second penalty for the incident \u2014 to add to a similar penalty from another earlier in the race \u2014 so we were promoted back to fifth position, which is no more than we deserved. Knowing that we could have potentially challenged for the podium stings a little, but I\u2019m happy to have taken another step forward in my own performance, <\/i><\/span><\/span>especially in race two, where I was catching Jordan Love\u2019s Ferrari before everyone\u2019s pace plateau<\/i><\/span><\/span>e<\/i><\/span><\/span>d out.<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the most difficult, technical circuits on the calendar, but one which most of the other drivers know extremely well. They\u2019re also in action in other series and racing almost every weekend of the season, whereas I\u2019m only out in this championship, so only get to practice and develop once a month at best. Thanks to Marcel, the team and the sponsors for their efforts in chasing that elusive podium this weekend \u2014 we\u2019ll keep fighting. Onto the next...<\/i><\/span><\/span>\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

With Pires likely to be fit to resume co-driver duties <\/span><\/span>alongside him for <\/span><\/span>the sixth and final round of the 2025 GTWC Australia powered by AWS season, King heads across the Tasman Sea to Hampton Downs, in New Zealand<\/span><\/span>, over the weekend of <\/span><\/span>31 October \u2013 2 November<\/span><\/span>. <\/span><\/span>The Briton currently holds sixth place in the drivers\u2019 standings, but is just five points off fifth and eight from the top four. Tigani Motorsport sits third overall in the teams\u2019 championship.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An enforced change of co-driver did little to halt George King\u2019s pursuit of a top five championship finish in the GTWC Australia series, as he maintained his 100 percent scoring record at Shell V-Power Motorsport Park. The Briton had scored in each double-header outing through four rounds, but headed to the South Australian circuit colloquially […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[6,72,59,73,58,71,70,57],"class_list":["post-525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-race-report","tag-george-king","tag-geyer-valmont-racing","tag-gtwc-australia","tag-marcel-zalloua","tag-mercedes-amg-gt3-evo","tag-shell-v-power-motorsport-park","tag-the-bend","tag-tigani-motorsport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkracing.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkracing.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkracing.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkracing.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkracing.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=525"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkracing.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":526,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkracing.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525\/revisions\/526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkracing.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkracing.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkracing.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkracing.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}