{"id":822529,"date":"2026-07-25T07:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T07:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/822529\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T07:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T07:39:12","slug":"sro-gt-news-shearer-takes-maiden-gt4-pole-in-darwin-while-audi-and-mclaren-fly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/822529\/","title":{"rendered":"SRO GT news: Shearer takes maiden GT4 pole in Darwin while Audi and McLaren fly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"1530\" height=\"1020\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SRO-Darwn-Speedcafe-GT4-037-e1784943399531.jpg\" class=\"sc-hero-img\" alt=\"Shearer takes maiden GT4 pole in Darwin while Audi and McLaren fly\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\"  \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJensen Shearer took his first GT4 Australia pole position at Hidden Valley. Image: InSyde Media<\/p>\n<p>The first of two 15-minute sessions on Saturday morning was topped by Purdie in the #48 Audi R8 with a 1:09.8210s lap.<\/p>\n<p>Kiwi young gun William Exton (#114 McLaren Artura) slotted into second, just 0.14s behind Purdie, with championship leader Tom Hayman (#25 McLaren) in third.<\/p>\n<p>Blake Tracey (#35 Ford Mustang) continued the strong form shown in practice running fourth fastest, while lead Silver-Am competitor Zac Soutar was the third McLaren entry in the top five.<\/p>\n<p>A pair of Ford Racing junior drivers were sixth and seventh, with American Sam Paley (#62 Mustang) closely followed by Cameron McLeod (#227 Mustang).<\/p>\n<p>Shearer (#46 Porsche Cayman) was eighth, followed by Blake Dowdall (#95 Mustang) in the second Miedecke Motorsport entry.<\/p>\n<p>Aaron Seton (#1 Mustang) rounded out the top 10 in the repaired Gomersall Motorsport entry.<\/p>\n<p>Nathan Callaghan led the way in the Am Cup in 19th outright, just 0.04s clear of class championship rival Glenn Walker.<\/p>\n<p>Qualifying 1 ran unaffected for the entire duration, with no drivers finding trouble.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1038863\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SRO-Darwn-Speedcafe-GT4-041-e1784943636272-1200x800.jpg\" alt=\"Blake Purdie in Monochrome GT4 Australia at Hidden Valley\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Blake Purdie set the pace in Qualifying 1 in GT4 Australia at Hidden Valley. Image: InSyde Media<\/p>\n<p>Two-driver entries swapped pilots for Qualifying 2, where Shearer set the pace with a 1:09.8598s to seal his first GT4 Australia pole position.<\/p>\n<p>Shearer led home Jett Murray (#25 McLaren) by the narrowest of margins, with just 0.08s covering the pair.<\/p>\n<p>Jobe Stewart rounded out the top three in the #48 Audi.<\/p>\n<p>Glenn Nirwan was the fastest Silver-Am competitor in 14th outright, with the #75 McLaren sweeping both sessions in class.<\/p>\n<p>Jarrod Keyte (#21 Mustang) took the honours in the Am Cup in 15th outright.<\/p>\n<p>Several cars found trouble in the second session, including third-placed Stewart.<\/p>\n<p>The Supercars rookie ran wide on the exit of Turn 1, taking light damage the the left-rear bodywork on the Audi.<\/p>\n<p>Jack Johnson went sixth fastest despite a spin on the exit of Turn 1, while Nirwan found the grass at Turn 5.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/speedcafe.com\/motorsport-news-2026-monochrome-gt4-australia-hidden-valley-darwin-sam-brabham-substitute-driver-murphy-racing-mercedes-amg\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Super sub Sam Brabham<\/a> was 12th fastest in his cameo return to the category.<\/p>\n<p>Monochrome GT4 Australia returns for the first of two one-hour races this weekend at 1:10pm ACST, live on Fox Sports and Kayo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jensen Shearer took his first GT4 Australia pole position at Hidden Valley. Image: InSyde Media The first of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":822530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,150567,806,805,803,804,254712,85],"class_list":["post-822529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-monochrome-gt4-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-speedseries","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=822529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/822530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}