Golden Homes GT NZ Champions Decided Marco Giltrap Wins Open, Jono McFarlane Wins GT4

Marco Giltrap has been crowned the Golden Homes GT NZ Open Class Champion, with Jono McFarlane crowned the champion in the GT4 Class.

In race two held this morning at the Manfeild circuit, open class was won by Wayne Leach in a Ferrari, second place went to Heremana Malmezac in a Porsche, with Luke Manson third in Porsche.

The GT4 class win went to the McLaren of Todd Bawden, with Joel Giddy in a Mercedes AMG, with the Aston Martin of Stephen Harrison third.

The third and final race of the weekend, and the season finale, it saw Jono Lester take victory in Open Class, with the Ferrari of Wayne Leach second, and Marco Giltrap third.

In GT4, the Ginetta of Steve Scoles won, with Bawden second and Richard Crabb in a McLaren finishing third.

The round wins went to Jono Lester & Francois Beziac in Open Class, with Todd Bawden taking the round win in GT4.

Heading into the final race of the weekend and the season, Giltrap had a 69 point lead over nearest rival Luke Manson, and just had to finish to secure the championship crown.

“It was a pretty cool race to be honest, it was shaping up to be a close finish, then the safety car got called and it was all on from there,” said Giltrap.

“We knew we didn’t have to do much we were in a comfortable position to win the Championship, the seas sort of parted ways on the restart, I saw a gap and moved up to P3 which was awesome. We only had to finish the race to win.”

Giltrap was ‘Mr Consistency’ all season long, regularly finishing on the podium at every round, though not managing to clinch an elusive win.

“It’s a little bit bitter sweet to be honest. To not have won a race, but to have the championship is awesome. We were consistent from day dot, with Matt Houston (engineer) and then Stephen Giles coming in this round to help us. Lots of podiums at least, so we will take that.”

Francois Beziac finished second in the championship, with Luke Manson third.

In GT4, newly crowned champion Jono McFarlane beat reigning GT4 champion Nigel Cromie to the title, in a hard fought battle all season. Similar to the battle in Open Class, McFarlane just had to finish the last race of the season to maintain his points lead over Cromie.

“Very happy, so stoked for the team Mach 1 Engineering, all of the crew, said McFarlane.

Heading into the weekend, the goal for McFarlane was to maintain his points lead, and not let Cromie too far ahead of him on track.

“The plan for the weekend, was to stick to Nigel (Cromie) like glue and not let him get to far ahead. And to finish the race which is the hard thing.”

In the final race of the season, a late safety car saw a one lap dash to the chequered flag.

“I was a bit nervous on the safety car restart in that last race, I thought it was going to be chaos, so I just pulled back and let everyone do their thing.”

“The season has been awesome, I’ve had so much fun, all the teams, all the drivers, we all get on really well. Awesome fun.”

Nigel Cromie finished second in the championship to McFarlane, with Todd Bawden third.