Miedecke Stone secure podium at Highlands 101 finale

It was great to read this morning that Australian based Miedecke Stone Motorsport concluded their Australian GT Endurance Championship with a podium finish.

Having entered a two car entry for the first time last time out at Hampton Downs, two very unfortunate yet equally disappointing DNF's left the team frustrated as to what could have been yet the 'fortune' of having two cars available to them at Highland Motorsport Park, New Zealand certainly helped with what happened next.


We believe the father and son team originally intended to compete in both the sprint series and endurance race in each of their V12 Vantage GT3's that they had available. A late call on Thursday saw Andrew Miedecke competing solo in the Sprint Series with their blue and Black liveried #96 car leaving their orange and black #95 car for the 101 lapper. That all changed when Miedecke senior had a sizeable side on impact with the circuit outer wall coming out of the final corner of the lap - damage that put pay to using the #95 car at all reducing them to the #96 which they would both save for the 101.

Qualifying for the 101 went well for the #96 with George and Andrew securing fifth and seventh places respectively and with that ending in a P3 grid starting position and the series own take on a Le Mans style starting sprint!


With George obliging with a long distance sprint the initial driving duties were left to Andrew to undertake having been 'released' by the cars runner from the echelon grid but despite a good start the #96 car had dropped to P8 by the time of the first compulsory stop.

A deployed Safety Car for a spun car on lap 33 bunched the field up again before being deployed again just a few laps later for a stationary car. At lap 46 the field had also reached their minimum driver time for whoever was in the car at the start and with that the #96 stopped to change over to George who would take the car to the flag.


With the balance of driver lap times equalling out with all the cars now having their second driver inside the #96 MSM car quickly found its way back up to P3 by the time of the races third Safety Car intervention with just 23 laps to go. Miedecke was now chasing brand stable mate Greg Murphy in the Tony Quinn Aston Martin Vantage car for P2, both just two seconds off the leading Mercedes AMG but that proved to be a battle too far for the #96.


Taking the chequered flag eleven seconds down to the leader George and Miedecke secured another much deserved podium position in P3 - more silverware that will sit proudly beside their winners trophy from the Sydney event.

Whilst the team now prepare these two Vantage to be shipped back to base the teams third Vantage GT3 is now being prepared for the 'Challenge Bathurst' sprint event in just under two weeks time - an event that is taken as a test for the 12hours of Bathurst early next year. Details on that event can be found HERE

Photo credits - MSM / Australian GT