GTWC Australia: Renee Gracie secures top five at The Bend

Renee Gracie equalled her career best result in GT World Challenge Australia with fifth place both in the overall standings and within the Pro-Am class in the first race of The Bend weekend, second round of the 2026 season.

Photo credits: Jack Martin Photography

Renee Gracie equalled her career best result in GT World Challenge Australia with fifth place both in the overall standings and within the Pro-Am class in the first race of The Bend weekend, second round of the 2026 season. A puncture in the opening stages of the second race eventually denied her another strong result to complete an overall positive second round.

Gracie and new teammate Will Davison endured a tricky yet promising start to their 2026 GT World Challenge Australia campaign at Phillip Island last time out, as the OnlyFans Racing Team duo was caught in opening-lap incidents in both races.

Stepping up to the highly competitive ProAm class in a new Ferrari 296 GT3 after Gracie’s 2025 AM-class championship-winning campaign, the new pairing nevertheless showed promising pace throughout the weekend. However, early contact in both contests forced them into recovery drives, ultimately limiting them to seventh place in Race 1 before an unfortunate retirement in Race 2.

The second race weekend at The Bend however would bring some redemption with a top five finish in the first race, before some more misfortune struck in Race 2, denying the duo of another overall top ten finish.

Following rain showers during the support races, the track remained damp for the GT World Challenge Australia race, though no further rain appeared to be on the horizon. Renee Gracie started Saturday's race from 7th place in her Ferrari 296 GT3 and managed to defend this position through the opening corners. However, in the tight corners that followed, she was held up by the accordion effect, allowing Currie to overtake both her and the car ahead driven by Lucchitti.

After three laps, Currie spun out on his own after touching the wet grass, allowing Gracie to reclaim her position. At the same time, the second-place driver in the overall standings, Smollen, received a drive-through penalty for an infringement during the start procedure; as he served the penalty, he, too, ceded his position to Gracie.

Gracie now sat in sixth place both overall and within the ProAm class, and found herself battling Lucchitti for fifth place. The duel remained close and fierce right up until the pit stop window opened; for most of this stint, the gap between them was less than half a second. Toward the end of the stint, however, Gracie began to slightly drift away, allowing the gap to widen to four seconds by the time she pitted.

With 26 minutes remaining on the clock, Davison took the wheel of the #181 Ferrari. He rejoined the race in 7th place, trailing Feeney - who was running ahead by seven seconds. Once all teams had completed their pit stops, Davison was effectively promoted to 5th place in the running order. However, the gap to Feeney continued to grow.

Meanwhile, the cars behind him were running at a quick pace, and Wood began to close in. With just 12 minutes remaining, the gap to Wood had dropped to less than a second, and the Audi driver launched repeated attacks. Turn 1, in particular, emerged as a key battleground. Yet, Davison consistently held his ground under braking, managing to keep his nose ahead. In doing so, he secured fifth place both in the overall standings and within the Pro-Am class.

With the result, Renee Gracie equalled her career best in the championship.

Photo credits: Jack Martin Photography

In the second race, Davison had to start from further back than his teammate Gracie did in the first race, slotting into 12th place overall and 11th in class. Just a few corners in, Patterson was spun around and across the track. Davidson lost a position in the first sector, but thanks to the spinning car ahead, he immediately gained one back. Shortly thereafter, he managed to make up yet another position.

However, after just over five minutes, misfortune struck: the Ferrari unexpectedly pitted early due to a puncture on the front right tyre. The tyre was replaced quickly, but the team now found themselves trailing the field by over 40 seconds.

The cars ahead of Davison, theoretically from slower classes, still proved difficult to clear and make up time as he pushed through to catch back the pack. Despite shaving off a couple of seconds per lap, yet by the time of his pit stop towards the end of the pit window, Davison had reduced the gap to Youlden to only around 30 seconds.

The pit stop went flawlessly. Afterward, Gracie was trailing 14th place by only a few seconds. With 19 minutes remaining, Halstead proved to be a relatively easy prey: Gracie’s pace quickly allowed her to pull away from the Porsche and close in on Porter’s Aston Martin. Here, the battle was much tougher. She had to fight for several laps to finally, albeit briefly, overtake Porter with five minutes left in the race. He soon counterattacked, closing the gap back down to one second, before Gracie finally sealed the deal and passed him for good with two minutes remaining.

Within their class, these final two overtaking maneuvers yielded no further gains and Renee Gracie crossed the finish line in P12; however, the sheer determination and the spirited charge through the overall classification revealed their potential - provided, of course, that the team is spared from further bad luck at the next race in Queensland from July 12th to 14th.