Two races into the 2019 Intercontinental GT Challenge season and a former Porsche PAYCE Carrera Cup Australia Champions has stood on the top step of the podium on both occasions.

Carrera Cup Australia’s 2016 Champion Matt Campbell was the first to record a race victory in the five-round international endurance series with an impressive performance at the 2019 Bathurst 12 Hour alongside German Dirk Werner and Norwegian Dennis Olsen.

The trio failed to replicate this success at last weekend’s California 8 Hours race at Laguna Seca, USA, being forced to retire from the eight-hour race due to a defective gearshift component.

“It’s really frustrating when you don’t get the just desserts when things had looked so promising,” said Campbell. “But sometimes this is just how it goes in motorsport. The important thing is that we managed to show how strong we are in the new version of the Porsche 911 GT3 R in the Intercontinental GT Challenge. We want to win the next round in Spa.”

At the front of the field, it was Carrera Cup Australia’s 2015 Champion Nick Foster who shined alongside countryman Tim Slade and Miguel Molina for Taiwanese team, HubAuto.

“This is about as good as it gets, really,” said Foster. “It’s a massive credit to our engineering group and team for slowly chipping away through the week and putting together what they needed to do. Right from the word ‘go’ we focused on the race car and with that came a bit of qualifying performance – I think that’s what really set us up for the day as we were quite good in the cool conditions compared to everyone else. I think that really set up the race for us in terms of performance.”

Both Campbell and Foster sit equal second in the Intercontinental GT Challenge Driver Standings while Porsche sits second to Mercedes-Benz in the GT3 Manufacturers Standings.

The Intercontinental GT Challenge will next race at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium on July 25-28 for the 24 Hours of Spa endurance classic.