The final round of the Australian GT Championship presented by Pirelli may have been the maiden event on the stunning new Highlands Motorsport Park circuit in the south island of New Zealand, but the flagship race was without question the ‘Highlands 101’.

An invitational event that set the Australian GT regulars against the fastest of the local South Island Endurance Series competitors was expected to attract as many as 40 entries, but due to attrition during the regular program for the two series, the field was cut by a handful of entries to 33-cars ahead of the scheduled qualifying session and 101-lap main event.

Typically it was the Pirelli shod Australian GT Championship front-runners that dominated qualifying with new Australian champion Klark Quinn alongside five-time Australian Carrera Cup champion Craig Baird who stole the prime starting spot on combined lap times.

Second after some minor cooling tweaks to the Highlands McLaren MP4-12C was Greg Murphy and Neil Crompton, with AGT race two winners Tony Quinn and Fabian Coulthard third.

On an individual basis the leading drivers (in order of their fastest times) were Fabian Coulthard (1:33.568), Craig Baird (1:33.926) and Greg Murphy (1:33.964), all three V8 Supercar drivers turning in stunning sub-34 second laps, in the process laying the foundations for what would be an incredible race.

Another thing that would serve to make the race interesting was the Le Mans style foot race to the cars for the start of the race. Each team’s second driver (or proxy) was faced with a 250-metre run to their car which was parked on a 45˚ angle in pit lane with the driver strapped in and the engine running.

Despite qualifying just seventh, young Kiwi V8 SuperTourer driver Andrew Waite proved very handy as a sprinter, handing team-mate Simon Evans a handy early lead, whilst Liam Talbot provided Rod Salmon a similar advantage.

Despite this it was clear the three top qualifiers were going to be the focus of the battle for victory. All three had a little work to do off the start, although whilst they quickly worked their way forwards, an early caution to remove the stricken Lamborghini Gallardo of Jan Jinadasa impacted their progression in the early laps.

Klark Quinn was on a charge early with Dean Canto (Ferrari 458) also doing a stellar job to work his way through to second behind the GT title winning Porsche, whilst Coulthard and Murphy began their progression forward.

Murphy was clearly on a mission, and he shot through on both Coulthard and Klark Quinn by lap 12 before stopping out of sequence to fuel the gorgeous orange McLaren on lap 20. Klark Quinn followed suit a couple of laps later as Canto and Coulthard continued to extend their lead.

With Baird now at the wheel of the Porsche, the lap times started to fall as track temperature crept well over 30 degrees and the Pirelli slicks started to come into their own.

Ahead of Baird, Ivan Capelli had the former French Championship winning GT3 Corvette up to fifth and pressing hard. The former Leyton House and Ferrari Formula 1 driver had been particularly impressive during the two AGT races, but he admitted that the technical nature of the Highlands circuit wasn’t particularly suited to the big American icon.

“Unlike many of the more recent European GT3-spec cars, we’re still running the sequential shifter, so that has an impact on our pace with the busy nature of the circuit, but also the physical size of the Corvette on a circuit with fast changes of direction impacts us a little too, so it’s not the ideal circuit for us. That said, from a driver’s perspective, it is spectacular to drive, a very challenging circuit that requires some real thought to get right.”

By mid-race the front-running Australian GT teams that had been so competitive during the previous two days of competition were again back in the thick of the battle at the front of the field, with Canto in the Ferrari under fire from Murphy before pitting mid race to hand over to Andrew Taplin.

A series of Safety Car periods to recover stricken cars on circuit allowed the order to shuffle, and with Murphy staying out for an extended period, a number of the front-running cars dropped a lap down allowing the Taplin 458 to stay in contention.

By this stage Craig Baird in the #1 VIP Petfoods Porsche was charging. With the sun shining and track temperature up, he was resetting the race record with each passing lap, at times by up to two tenths, but on lap 65 having just dropped the mark to a 1:34.671, he came into heavy contact with one of the South Island Endurance Series regulars under the Pirelli bridge – one of the most unforgiving parts of the circuit.

The field was immediately slowed behind the Safety Car allowing a number of teams to effect changes, but for the Porsche it was game over.

“I was charging pretty hard, but I also knew that we could work our way back into the equation with fuel stops so I wasn’t doing anything silly, but it appears he just didn’t see me, and that’s all it took,” Baird explained afterwards.

Whilst the Baird/Quinn combination was out, the Capelli/Manolios partnership was also struggling despite an inspirational opening stint from Capelli. Sadly Jim Manolios was forced to battle an electrical issue, the Pirelli supported Corvette spending more time in the pits than on the circuit.

Another of the AGT regulars that was struggling was the sole remaining Ginetta of newly crowned GT Sports champion Mark Griffith. A brilliant run by Jack Perkins during the Le Mans start had Griffith in the box seat early, but he was soon back in the pits with a broken axle. Fortunately for him, but unfortunately for his GT4 rivals Michael Hovey and Tony Martin, both their cars were in the pits after a litany of issues kept them from making the 101 grid, providing the Griffith team with the parts they needed to make repairs and return to the field.

Likewise GT trophy Class champion Steve McLaughlan. The Dodge Viper pilot too was out early after suffering a mystery electrical issue on lap 22 that cut out the fuel pump, forcing him to a stop just past the Pirelli bridge. It was cool comfort for the new Audi recruit (he will defend his title with an Audi R8 LMS in 2014) after stopping within metres of where his opening AGT race ended with a differential failure..

AGT rookies Indiran Padayachee and Zaron Zerefos too were out early, a broken driveshaft forcing the Porsche Challenge class pilots into retirement after only 37 laps, whilst the championship winning Ben Foessel Porsche was also back into the garage early in the race with a similar driveline issue.

Up front the race for the lead was starting to become interesting, the extended safety car period to remove the #1 Porsche and the South Island Series Séat allowed some of the teams to make a final stop for fuel and in some cases tyres, although for the Pirelli team their one level of frustration was the negligible tyre wear the Pirelli compound was experiencing at Highlands.

“In some cases cars have been running as many as 200 laps on the DH compound,” Pirelli’s Tyre Manager Chris Montgomery confirmed. “There are some teams that have changed tyres mid-race, but others – the notable exception being the Canto/Taplin entry – haven’t. In fact the only drama we’ve had this weekend is carbon fibre shards slicing tyres, we know they’re the culprit because we’ve pulling pieces out of any of the tyres that have had issues, apart from that they’re surprised us all with their durability here.”

After the stops had been completed and the lap count wound down towards 101, the race started to unfold. After holding a strong lead at one point, the Taplin Ferrari fell back into the clutches of the Greg Murphy McLaren, who was coming under attack from Fabian Coulthard in Tony Quinn’s Aston, and a charging Jason Bright.

John Bowe too was on a charge, the Ferrari pilot through on Taplin before he made a late stop to hand the car back to Canto.

Sadly for Murphy his dream run came to a late end after a six inch long shard of carbon fibre deflated the left front necessitating a late stop for a change, dropping the crowd favourite back to fifth behind the charging Canto.

Up front Jason Bright too was charging, at one point the V8 Supercar regular was three wide on the narrow Pirelli bridge to make an overtaking move on Murphy, the two V8 stars going either side of a surprised South Island Series driver.

By flag fall though at 101 laps and a shade over three hours, victory went to Tony Quinn and Fabian Coulthard, with the Bright/Salmon/Talbot Audi second, and a revitalised John Bowe third, the former Bathurst 1000 winner setting his fastest lap of the race just four laps from home, and only nine one hundredths slower than the best lap of the race.. almost three hours in!

For Tony Quinn the end result was a fitting conclusion to what had been an incredible opening event at the Highlands circuit, and from the broad grin on his face – perhaps a mix of relief and of jubilation – it was clear he was happy with the result.

“It’s always satisfying to win any race, but it’s obviously mixed for me because some people might think it’s stacked in my favour in some way,” he explained afterwards. “You know, I chose to drive with the Kiwi guys like Fabian – they’re very genuine and always try their best.”

For Rod Salmon the 101 result only widened a smile that had been etched on his face since the opening race win on Friday afternoon. “I think I’m going to move here,” he laughed post-race. “How good is this track, how good is this venue. I know I’m biased after our win on Friday, but quite honestly this is one spectacular venue and the racing has been fantastic.

“I can’t thank our Melbourne Performance Centre team enough, and what a great couple of stints by Brighty and Liam to help cement the result. For us it has been a faultless weekend, and a win, a third and a second is more than we could have dreamt for coming in.”

For John Bowe and Peter Edwards third for them was testament to the teams commitment and the ongoing improvement by car-owner Peter Edwards.

“Every lap I found improvements on track, and every session I went faster,” Edwards admitted. “JB really found his mojo again and the team just kept working at it all weekend. The Safety Cars were tough, but John’s final stint really brought us back into the equation.”

For the Australian GT teams that concludes the 2013 season, but with the GT calendar kicking off in February (7-9) with the Bathurst 12-Hour, there won’t be too much time to prepare.