IT wasn't official, but Brad Schumacher could still claim to have debuted his new Audi in style at Mount Panorama on Tuesday.
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Had a red flag not been waved, the Bathurst driver would have clocked the fastest lap in the opening practice session of the GT World Challenge Australia series round at the Mount in his new Audi R8 LMS Ultra.
Behind the wheel of a car which he had not previously raced, let alone put to test at the Mount before Tuesday, Schumacher produced a 2:08 flyer.
"I topped the session with a 2:08 but it doesn't count because as I came down to Murray's the red flag came out, so my flying lap didn't count," Schumacher said.
"Practice is doesn't matter, but the entire field will be looking at that time and seeing I'm over a second and a half quicker than anyone else in that session even though it wasn't official. So there'll be a lot of thinking going on."
Schumacher heads into the final round of the GT series as the leader of the trophy class. He has his sights set on staying on top of the points tally and from what the new Audi produced on Tuesday morning, he's got every chance.
The unofficial flying lap was by no means pushing as hard as he could, the driver taking a sensible approach in his #55 Kelso Electrical entry given there was oil on the track.
"There's a lot of oil on the track, so there's oil all the way through the braking zone in turn one, oil from turn two all the way to turn six. It's extremely slippery and two cars have put it into the wall at turn six due to the oil, Paul Stokell and Michael Bailey unfortunately in the lovely Bentley he's just bought," Schumacher said.
"It was 100 percent a cautious lap, it's definitely got a lot more in it. Braking down the middle of road down the middle of Pit Straight into turn one because the oil is down the right-hand side of the circuit in the braking zone, I'm losing a lot of mid-corner speed as I'm not able to attack the corner.
"That in turn loses a lot of speed by the time you get to the end of Mountain Straight into turn two, so it really affects your whole lap ... by the time you gain a bit of momentum back and hit turn four, the oil is all through the braking zone again.
"So it was tough, you were taking an awkward line in a lot of the turns to avoid the oil, you were braking in the centre of the circuit and a lot earlier in some spots because the braking zone was where the oil had been spilt."
Schumacher's quickest official lap of opening practice was a 2:10.1060, while in practice two he clocked a 2:07.9200.
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