Mercedes Comes Out Swinging at Sydney Motorsport Park

Friday at Sydney Motorsport Park began with a tidy little reminder that practice sheets are not written in stone. Jayden Ojeda and Paul Lucchitti put the #66 Tigani Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3 on top in the opening session for GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS, which is exactly the sort of thing that gets a garage crew nodding with approval and muttering about “good baseline” and “track evolution.”

By the end of the day, though, the story had changed. The Mercedes that looked so sharp in the morning had slipped down the order in final practice, where Broc Feeney and Brad Schumacher set the benchmark. Same circuit, same cars, same day. Racing, rather irritatingly for anyone trying to draw neat conclusions, has a habit of refusing to stay in one shape for long.

The Opening Session Belonged to Tigani Motorsport

Ojeda and Lucchitti’s pace in the first practice session was the headline result for Mercedes-AMG. The Tigani Motorsport pairing used the #66 GT3 to go quickest early, giving the team a clean start to the weekend and putting the brand in the frame before the serious business of qualifying and racing got underway.

That early speed matters, even if it does not come with trophies or champagne. Practice is where teams learn what the circuit is doing, where the tires are happiest, and which setup direction is worth pursuing. At a place like Sydney Motorsport Park, where conditions can shift and grip levels tend to wander around like a lost shopping trolley, being first out of the blocks is a decent place to be.

Final Practice Belonged to Feeney and Schumacher

The afternoon picture was rather less flattering for the Mercedes camp. Broc Feeney and Brad Schumacher topped the final session, pushing the morning pace-setters back down the order. The shift does not necessarily mean one car has suddenly developed a personality disorder and another has become a genius; practice times often reflect fuel loads, tire usage, traffic, and who is chasing a lap versus who is hunting a longer-run setup.

Still, the balance of the day showed that the front of the field is tight and that nobody gets to keep a practice advantage simply because they found a happy setup before lunch. In GT racing, the gap between “looks promising” and “best in session” can be as slender as a polite shrug from a race engineer.

What Friday Actually Told Us

There is a useful difference between being fast in one session and being strong across a day. Mercedes-AMG’s morning pace suggested the package has speed in it, but the late-session reversal indicated the competition was working just as hard and, at least for the final run, had the upper hand.

That is the lovely, mildly maddening thing about GT World Challenge. With closely matched machinery, success rarely comes from one dramatic headline time. It comes from getting the car to behave consistently over changing track conditions, tire life, and whatever Friday decides to throw at the field. One session can flatter a car; two sessions start telling the truth.

For Tigani Motorsport, the early benchmark from Ojeda and Lucchitti is still useful. It confirms the Mercedes-AMG GT3 has enough outright pace to fight at the front. The challenge, as ever, is turning that promise into something repeatable once everyone stops treating practice like a science experiment and starts treating it like a race weekend.

Sydney’s Friday Form Book Rarely Stays Still

Sydney Motorsport Park has a fine talent for keeping teams honest. The layout rewards commitment, precision, and a car that can be trusted through long, fast corners without turning the driver’s seat into a mildly panic-stricken office chair. It is a circuit where balance matters, and where a car that is comfortable on one lap can suddenly become a bit of a handful when the tires heat up or the track changes character.

That is why Friday results can be slippery little creatures. A morning flyer is nice. A session-topping run in the afternoon is nicer. But the real value lies in how the teams interpret the split picture: where the Mercedes was strong, where it faded, and what needs tweaking before the weekend starts collecting proper points.

So the early takeaway from GT World Challenge Australia at Sydney is straightforward enough. Mercedes-AMG showed enough in the first practice session to look dangerous, then lost the final word to Feeney and Schumacher later in the day. Not a crisis, not a coronation either. Just a proper Friday in GT racing, which is to say a polite mess with timing screens.