Tasmanian drivers Lochie Dalton and Ben Newman claim a podium place at Australian GT4 championship

Tasmanian motorsport talent Lochie Dalton has continued to go from strength-to-strength with an impressive performance during a career first event. Plus, the latest on his Supercars future.

Tasmanians Ben Newman and Lochie Dalton finished third at the Austrlian GT4 event in Sydney. Picture supplied

Tasmanian Lochie Dalton is on the verge of signing a new deal with V8 supercar powerhouse Tickford Racing for 2025 and the young gun boosted his stocks with a podium finish at the Australian GT4 championship round in Sydney at the weekend.

Dalton, 22, who is based in Sydney, is a member of the Tickford stable as its star driver in Super2, the second tier supercars series and nursery for the next generation of drivers in the main game.

Tasmanian duo Ben Newman and Lochie Dalton finished third at the Austrlian GT4 event in Sydney. Picture supplied

Dalton teamed with fellow-Tasmanian Ben Newman in a Mercedes AMG for the last round of the GT4 series at Sydney Motorsport Park on Saturday and Sunday.

They raced their Tasmanian-backed Mercedes to third overall for the round.

Dalton described the weekend as “awesome”.

“And it was pretty cool to do it in an all-Tassie outfit and take it up to some of these big dogs,” Dalton said.

The hour-long race had a minimum drive time of 20 minutes per driver.

“Ben qualified the car in 17th and he started the race and we swapped over half-way through,” Dalton said.

“We were able to bring the car through the field and get ourselves on the podium.”

It was Dalton’s first drive it the GT4s.

“I just came into this one with Ben – he’s done a few of them but not all because he’s a rally regular with the Buckby Motorsport crew,” he said.

“It’s a cool car, a beautiful Mercedes, to its great to be racing a Mercedes against a Porsche, a McLaren, and you’re getting the most out of them.”

Tasmanian drivers Ben Newman and Lochie Dalton finished third at the Australian GT4 event in Sydney. Picture supplied

Dalton has a supercars test day with Tickford next week ahead of the final round of the Super2 championship in Adelaide next month.

“It’s more of a Super2s-focus before the last round and I will finalise my contract for next year in the next couple of weeks,” he said.

“In Adelaide we’ll be looking for more of the same from Bathurst.

“We had a really strong car there and we were fighting in the top three, so hopefully we can do that again in Adelaide and finish on the podium.”