GT4 Australia Round 4

Hidden Valley Raceway

Published on Tuesday, 28th of July 2026

The awesome MR GT4 crew made the big trek up to Darwin back in April to test our Carrera Cup Porsches and our GT4 BMWs. On the Porsche side of the garage the test was clearly productive as we came back to the top end in late June where Harri won race 2 and was 2nd for the round. To keep the momentum, we were hoping for another great weekend with our BMW M4 Evos.

Despite the huge logistical and financial effort to travel so far, there was still a big field with 10 cars in Jay’s ‘Silver’ category and 8 cars in Nathan’s ‘Am’ category. We were looking forward to a fun weekend.

McElrea Racing crew at Hidden Valley Raceway 2026

Jay Murray #7

Silver Class

Erik Pender

Shaun Simpson

P11

DNF

Jay was quick in official practice but when qualifying rolled around it appeared that a couple of other manufacturers may have been sandbagging in practice to protect their favourable BOP.

In race 1 Jay was running well until a lunge on one of the Toyotas in the opening laps ran him slightly wide at turn 1 and cost us 8 places. He then put his head down a produced an excellent recovery drive up to 12th before contact with an Am driver at turn 1 bent the steering.

Jay started race 2 from 9th position and immediately started making moves forward. His engineer Erik timed his pitstop perfectly and Jay popped out of the pits in 3rd right in the middle of a frantic lead pack. He did a superb job to manage his tyre wear for the remaining 25 minutes while keeping a very hungry Mustang behind him, to take his second podium in GT4 racing in 2026.

Jay Murray #7 racing at Hidden Valley Raceway 2026

Nathan Murray #5

Am Class

In qualifying and race 1 we were focused on ‘switching on’ and getting the big dog up to speed a little quicker on cold tyres. Nathan not only got into his race rhythm quicker, but also after our CPS (compulsory pit stop) settling into 4th in Am class before a great race with Lawrence. Despite losing the 4th place a few laps from the end, this race marked another leap forward in Nathan's development.

He had qualified an impressive 20th outright for race 2, but he got swamped off the start by some rather impatient competitors behind him. After the early safety car and pit stop, he properly got his act together and started posting top 3 Am class lap times but got a tad carried away making a lunge for 4th place and went for a short drive through the salad at turn 1, before settling back into a rhythm till the end.

Nathan Murray #5 racing at Hidden Valley Raceway 2026

Team Corner

McElrea Racing drivers at Hidden Valley Raceway 2026

Summary

Nathan had a standout weekend, taking another big step forward in all the elements required to win Pro-Am races at this level. After a challenging start to race 2 he started reeling off Am class race winning lap times, which proved to the pilot and team that given a more assertive start of the race, he would have been likely to join Jay on the podium. But’s getting closer every weekend!

Jay had another successful learning weekend, particularly in race 1 with a couple of minor race-craft mistakes. He put those lessons to great use in race 2 and stunned everyone watching with an exceptionally mature, aggressive but calculated race to the podium. It sure makes a big trip like Darwin worthwhile when we take home prizes!

The next round for the Morris/ Slatterys/ MT GT4 team is at Sydney Motorsport Park in mid-September.