Rising British star George King made an impressive start to life as a GT driver with a strong debut performance for Tigani Motorsport in the opening round of the 2025 GTWC Australia powered by AWS.
King was making his first race appearance at the wheel of a full-blown GT3 class machine, having signed to partner series veteran Sergio Pires in Tigani’s #55 Mercedes-AMG for the entire 2025 GTWCA campaign. The 24-year-old, however, was dealt another baptism of fire as the opening round took place at the unforgiving Phillip Island circuit, south-east of Melbourne, and pitted him against some extremely experienced and talented opposition. Undaunted, however, King bedded himself in during the various practice sessions and soon began to match up well with his rivals.
“Phillip Island is an unreal circuit, but very cut-throat — one wrong move and it would be a massive incident,” he commented as team-mate Pires put the #55 machine second on the qualifying timesheets. “It was a steep learning curve switching from prototypes to the GT car, but I think I adapted well to both the car and circuit day by day. It’s crazy to be going up against some of the best drivers in the world — factory drivers and multiple Supercars champions — but having one, new Mercedes factory driver Jayden Ojeda, in our sister car has been a huge help, allowing me to compare data and video and get accustomed to the car and tracks as quickly as possible.”
Pires’ strong qualifying performance put the Tigani pairing in a strong position for the first of two races across the weekend, and the Australian showed that the performance was no fluke by challenging for the lead of the race throughout his stint. Unable to complete a move before the mandatory pit-stop windown, Pires handed over to his new team-mate, with King rejoining the fray in fourth position, having been delayed by the unsafe release of a car further down the pit-lane which resulted in contact between the two.
Despite the collision, the Briton was able to remain with the pack until a safety car interruption bunched the field back together, when some intense battling on the restart saw the Mercedes pushed off the road and shuffled down to an eventual eighth position.
With the drivers swapping roles for the second race, King had scant time to review his series debut before being strapped back into the cockpit and lining up a little further back on the grid than his team-mate had been. Nevertheless, the Briton refused to be bowed by the seething pack and, after a rapid getaway, found himself going three-wide into the opening corner, when discretion finally got the better of valour. Phillip Island’s layout makes it tough to pass equally-matched cars and, despite being quicker on the stopwatch, King found himself bottled up for the majority of his stint.
“I learned a lot from race one that I could take into race two, and then had an amazing start down the outside of turn one,” he reflected. “Looking back, I could probably have stuck it out but, being my first race with the team and car, I wanted to play it safe and just bank some points. It was frustrating to be stuck behind another car even though I was way faster, but I was banging in competitive lap times and setting purple sectors, so it was also super promising!”
Once installed in the cockpit, Pires did all he could to move the #55 machine into a podium position, only to be undone by a downpour with two laps remaining. Although the Australian was able to stay on the circuit while others around him spun, he struggled for traction on the exit of the Turn 4 hairpin last time around and was unable to prevent himself from being overtaken.
“I’m a little disappointed not to get a debut podium, but I’m stoked with a P4 finish and good chunk of points to head into the rest of the season,” King commented. “I’m getting more and more comfortable in the car and Team Tigani are being super accommodating, helping me step-by-step to become a better driver, so I’m already looking forward to the next race.”
Round two of the 2025 GTWC Australia powered by AWS takes place at Sydney Motorsport Park at Eastern Creek, NSW, over the weekend of 2-4 May.
