Welcome, everyone, back to "The Mountain". Mount Panorama in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, in the Blue Mountains, a place, like the American West, that during the 19th century, had it's own gold rush. It is round one, at the fabled circuit on the mountain, of the 2024 SRO Intercontinental GT Challenge. The best GT3 drivers in the world are about to tackle the mountain in the predawn darkness here in Australia as the race gets underway behind the safety car as tradition dictates. We join the commentary team of John Hindhaugh, Richard Craill, and Garth Tander in the broadcast booth, with Shea Adam, Jack Perkins, and Chad Neylon reporting trackside from the pit lane and the Pirelli strategy bunker studio.
The field beading up Mountain Straight in the darkness. If your spine isn't tingling right now, it will be soon as we get ready to unleash the GT3 thunder on the mountain! It does not matter if drivers have been here to Bathurst before or it is the first time for them racing here. This event is special and is one of the biggest motor races worldwide for the whole year. The 2024 Repco Bathurst 12 Hour is about to begin. There's some slight weaving to put heat in the tires by one of the cars. This is forbidden by the rules before the race is about to start. The Motorsport Australia and SRO stewards will be looking at that. Into Murrays corner, the final turn on the circuit they come.
The polesitter, Dries Vanthoor, the Belgian aboard the #32 BMW Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 gets a flyer of a start! He and the rest of the field of 29 cars charge into Hell corner for the first time of asking. Dries Vanthoor sharing with fellow Belgian Charles Weerts, son of one of the co-owners of the WRT team, and with South African BMW factory driver Sheldon van der Linde. Second place Mikael Grenier, the Canadian star for Mercedes-AMG starting the #888 National Storage Racing Triple Eight outfit, sharing with Australian Supercar regulars for Triple Eight in 2024, Broc Feeney and Will Brown.
Finally, we have a green flag at Mount Panorama and the field screams up Mountain Straight for the first time, a sea of headlights piercing the early morning twilight. 11 hours and 49 minutes of racing remaining. Maro Engel the German is starting the #130 Mercedes-AMG GT3. This is the Mercedes-AMG Team GruppeM car in a white, silver, and gray special livery in celebration of the 130th anniversary of Mercedes Benz. Luca Stolz starting the #75 SunEnergy1 Mercedes-AMG GT3 the team and car that has won this race back-to-back in the previous two years looking for a hat trick. Ricardo Feller and Kelvin van der Linde each have the best of the Audi R8's so far. Feller is starting the race aboard the #2 KFC/Jamec Racing Team MPC Audi R8 LMS Evo II alongside Brad Schumacher and Markus Winkelhock.
Watch out across the top of the mountain on these stone-cold Pirelli tires. The lack of tire temperature affects the ride height of the car as well as the grip level just the same. The cars bottoming out, sparking, across The Cutting and the top of the mountain. From The Cutting they cross over such corners and places on the track as Quarry Corner, Reid Park, Frog Hollow, and Sulman Park before reaching the highest point on the mountain road, known as McPhillamy Park before making their way back down the mountain to finish a lap.
Sheldon van der Linde has made a fabulous start and is motoring away from Mikael Grenier presently. He is focusing on feeling the car out for balance, focusing on whether or not the tires are up to pressure, focusing on how much grip is available and what he can feel in driving the car. A race car driver feels how a car handles through their whole body, so, he will know how that BMW is behaving immediately as we get this motor race underway at Bathurst this morning. This is the first lap of many over the course of the next 12 hours. As challenging as it is for the drivers to race these GT3 cars in the darkness before sunrise, the cars are going to produce their best performance right here right now. The tires are coming up t temperature. The car is still crisp. The engine is still crisp. This is the sweet spot, the happy hour, for the starting drivers here at Mount Panorama.
15 minutes into the race and we have a move made for position. Maxime Martin, the experienced Belgian racer for BMW, he sweeps past Ricardo Feller in the Audi! Martin aboard the #46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3. Martin is sharing with MotoGP motorcycle racing legend Valentino "The Doctor" Rossi and with new BMW recruit, Raffaele Marciello, the Swiss licensed and domiciled Italian driver who has made a major move away from the Mercedes-AMG squad in Stuttgart and over to the rival camp at Bavarian Motorwerks in Munich for a GT3 campaign and perhaps eventually a shot at the BMW Hypercar program in the FIA World Endurance Championship with their M Hybrid V8 prototype.
Watch this space for a possibility of Marciello breaking into the prototype ranks. We have spoken a ton about the speed and performance that the twin turbocharged six-cylinder BMW has in sector one here at Mount Panorama. Trouble early doors and a pit caller for one of the Invitational class cars with a varied field of entrants. This is the #56 Nineteen Corp GT4 class Ginetta G55 coupe with trouble. The car being shared by team owner and operator Colin White along with Paul Buccini, Aaron Zerefos, and Owen Hizzey. It looks like there was some sort of fuel or oil spillage, something has been venting. There's been some substance puking its way out of the back of the car. It can only be oil or fuel that is not staying in the engine. Hard to tell from the camera angle but a fraught race for the sole Ginetta coupe entered in the race.
Let's take you forward in our highlighted coverage. An hour and 15 minutes now on the board with ten and 3/4 hours still to go. BMW has taken fresh tires on their most recent pit stop and now the battle is on between BMW and Mercedes at the back half of the top ten. Charles Weerts has ninth place in the #32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 while the man wanting to take it away is Will Brown aboard the #888 National Storage Racing Triple Eight Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo. Brown sharing with his Triple Eight Australian Supercars teammate and multiple champion Jamie Whincup and with the aforementioned Canadian Mercedes-AMG factory driver, Mikael Grenier.
Brown is on a far warmer set of tires currently than Charles Weerts, and Markus Winkelhock, too, wants a bite of the cherry. Winkelhock now aboard the #2 Jamec Racing Team MPC Audi. The KFC Kentucky Fried Chicken sponsored automobile. Winkelhock sharing with Ricardo Feller and with Brad Schumacher. Weerts has no choice but to defend into Murray's corner or you know that Brown is going to send it. Weerts looks like he is throwing a block at Brown. I don't think so. He is trying to get tire temperature because it appears he has fresh Pirelli P Zero's on the car and what did I say earlier? Stone cold tires are a living nightmare especially in the opening stint. I always say it in every endurance race, but it is absolutely true.
Will Brown is aware that if he wants by the BMW, he will have to pull the pin and go for it. Maro Engel is coming on the scene as well, look. Check this out. We've just had a first round of pit stops or maybe a second round and Valentino Rossi has leapfrogged everyone! That #46 WRT BMW M4 GT3, they are on a good strategy it appears. Rossi and Team 46 have done an overcut. Rossi on cold tires so his rivals will be all over him like a cheap suit, soon. The scrum we're watching is for the effective lead of this motor race. Laurens Vanthoor assumes the lead aboard the #912 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3R (992), the car he is sharing with his longtime Porsche teammate Matt Campbell from right here in Australia, and Turkish GT driver Ayhancan Guven.
WRT BMW teammates side by side! Oh man! Screaming up to Reid Park Rossi wriggles past Charles Weerts! Oh, my heavens! The teammates almost have a spot of argy bargy up there and this is manna from heaven for the Porsche boys who duck to the lane immediately! Brown and Weerts are at walking pace across the top of the mountain while they continue their little dust up. The in lap and the out lap will make the difference over the course of 12 hours and these blokes who we've been chuntering on about, one of them is the cork in the bottle for all the others. Currently, while we watch the Mercedes and BMW boys sword fight, both Manthey EMA Porsche's are in the lane.
There's the #912, the Guven, Campbell, Vanthoor, "Grello" entry, green and yellow, and the sister #911 sponsored by The Bend Motorsports Park and Shell V Power fuel, driven by The Bend Motorsports Park track owner and racing driver, Aussie Yasser Shahin, alongside British Porsche Carrera Cup standout Harry King, and the Belgian speedster, Alessio Picariello who is a Porsche works driver. We saw Picariello in another customer Porsche 963 LMDh prototype at the Rolex 24 just about three weeks ago. Vanthoor did the same, one in a factory Porsche 963 and the other in a customer entry. On his in lap, Laurens Vanthoor has just set personal best sector and gone purple, fastest of all, in another sector on the circuit.
He is maximizing the overcut as we see the two WRT BMW's still fighting with each other. Charles Weerts and Valentino Rossi are both trying to fight fairly, but in doing so they are costing eachother decent lap times. The brain trust at WRT especially team principal Vincent Vosse along with Yves Weerts, Pierre Dieudonne, and others, cannot be too keen on this. Vincent Vosse will be on the phone to these two saying, "stop fighting! There's way too much time left on the board! Give it a rest, boys!" This fighting is compromising their lap times. 2:11.2 for Weerts, and the young Turkish standout, Ayhancan Guven is motoring up the road ahead of these blokes.
Yasser Shahin and Jules Gounon at the wheel of the #75 SunEnergy1 Mercedes have streaked past these boys as they continue scrapping. Porsche 1-2 currently. The Porsche's are in the pound seats at the moment. Ayhancan Guven and Harry King, both, are bish bash boshing it right now. Manthey EMA are playing a blinder on their strategy early doors. But Harry King, is taking the pain right now of bringing a cold set of tires up to temperature and getting freight trained in the process, just like we saw a wee while ago with Valentino Rossi in the BMW. Truth be told, the Porsche's take a longer period to bed their tires in and get temperature into the surface, into the core of the tire itself.
Lee Holdsworth was in the pit lane with the #9 Hallmarc Audi R8 LMS and now is in big trouble! He tagged the wall down through The Dipper and the Esses. Holdsworth, the longtime Australian Supercars competitor sharing that Audi R8 with fellow Aussie Supercars veteran Dean Fiore and with the car and team owner, Marc Cini. Valentino Rossi well on his way, but he misses the apex and bounds over the curb on the exit of Murrays, the final turn here at Mount Panorama. Charles Weerts in the sister WRT BMW needed no second invitation to stuff it into Hell Corner and pass by Rossi.
Rossi wisely lets him go. If that weren't his teammate, discretion being the better part of valor would not apply in the slightest. Press the fast forward button on your DVR, or move ahead in the video and now, we are at two hours and 40 minutes in (the typical length of a sprint race for the IMSA championship) and we have a car stranded in the gravel trap in a cloud of dust! That is one of the Invitational cars, the #701 Vortex V8. This is a car we've seen in the Creventic 24 Hour Series in Europe numerous times, with a Chevrolet LS3 V8 crate motor in the back of it, being driven by a trio of French drivers.
This is the first Full Course Yellow intervention of this motor race. The Vortex is beached in the gravel trap at McPhillamy Park. Will we go Full Course Yellow? Or will we go safety car? Not a good debut for the all-French driving trio in the Vortex of Lionel Amrouche, Julien Boillot, and Philippe Bonnel. This will be the perfect pit stop opportunity. Julien Boillot is at the wheel of the Vortex currently. Let's see if we can find out in replay, what happened to poor old Julien here. He just loses it on corner entry to McPhillamy Park and spins backwards into the gravel trap. Full safety car scrambled until the corner workers can rescue Boillot from his predicament. More action, as we've gone back to green, and this is side by side stuff between the 18th and 23rd placed cars in the field. The #47 Supabarn Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 getting a shove from the #111 MRA Motorsport/111 Racing MARC II Mustang silhouette racer.
Big contact on the inside wall for the Mustang in addition to spinning out the Mercedes! That all happened at Forrest's Elbow, again. Darren Currie, Rylan Gray, and Grant Donaldson sharing the Mustang MARC entry and the #47 Supabarn Mercedes has a quartet of drivers including the Kondouris brothers, James and Theo Kondouris, sharing with Jonathon Webb, and David Russell, a couple former Aussie Supercars turned GT3 drivers. Later in the race, we go safety car. Another MARC II Mustang is in strife! The #91 has spun and clonked the barrier, hard! This is the Martini liveried MARC II V8 Mustang of Wheels FX Racing.
Oh man! He's found the fence at turn two at the top of Mountain Straight and that, ladies and gents, is far more than a clonk. That is a destroyed front end on that Mustang MARC car. Safety Car scramble for the second time in this motor race. This is the Wheels FX Racing MARC II Mustang as we said, being driven by Keith Kassulke, Cameron McLeod, Hadrian Morrall, and another Aussie Supercars and GT3 veteran, Tim Slade. He's lost it on corner entry, whipping around, and... ker-runch! He piles the car into the concrete barrier, nose first.
Alright. Keep pressing the old fast forward button, we now move to just over five hours, almost five and a half hours into the race. The battle rages at the top of the shop between Manthey EMA Porsche and both WRT BMW's. Matt Campbell leading Maxime Martin and Charles Weerts. One make Porsche racer, Tom McLennan, now at the wheel of a GT4 McLaren Artura is being eaten alive by the GT3's. He is at the wheel of the #230 Method Motorsport McLaren Artura GT4. Tom McLennan sharing with Tom Hayman and Elliott Schutte. Outside, outside, through McPhillamy Park! Markus Winkelhock in the Audi and another Mercedes of Jayden Ojeda, both make the pass.
The Australian, Ojeda, at the wheel of the #77 Craft Bamboo Mercedes-AMG GT3 he is sharing with Germany's Maximilian Gotz and Spaniard Daniel Juncadella. That is the Caltex liveried car, and now, Luca Stolz is right on Ojeda's six! There's contact downhill into the Elbow! Spare a thought for the GT4 drivers. Where can they go? Where can they go? They have absolutely no escape when a GT3 car has a head of steam and wants to pass. Caught between a rock and a hard place, the boys in the GT4 cars that have nowhere near the horsepower and nowhere near the aerodynamics.
This is the second time in the race today that a BMW has walloped the back of a McLaren Artura GT4, and I think it was the same BMW, the #32 WRT car with Charles Weerts at the wheel of it. There is no gap anyplace in the queue to change lanes to get out of the way. That is a king size ice cream headache for the GT4 drivers. Some hip and shoulder through The Elbow between the #48 Mercedes and the #911 Porsche. This is Glen Wood racing with Yasser Shahin, the #911 The Bend, Manthey EMA Porsche and the #48 M Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3. That is the car of Glen Wood, Jack Le Brocq, Garth Walden, and Justin McMillan.
Shahin spins after being tagged by Wood! Shahin in the Porsche, that car was unloaded anyhow, through the corner and he just spun off the road. He's beached in the gravel and can't believe it! That is one of the Pro-Am class contenders now out of contention. Yasser Shahin sharing with Alessio Picariello and Harry King as we mentioned earlier. Time for a restart now with four hours and 15 minutes of the race completed. So, we've run 1/3rd of the Bathurst 12 Hours already. Matt Campbell leads the field to green. It is Matt Campbell, Maxime Martin, Charles Weerts, Jaxon Evans, and Kelvin van der Linde, the top five.
Six through ten, it is Markus Winkelhock, Mikael Grenier, Maro Engel, Jayden Ojeda, and Luca Stolz. Kelvin van der Linde in the first of the Audi's is now right back in contention with the Porsche's and the BMWs particularly. Matt Campbell waited to accelerate on this specific restart until after going around Murrays corner. Our mate and former Supercars and GT3 driver, Garth Tander says "the last thing you want to do is be predictable when you're the leader on a safety car restart." Closing in on the end of the fifth hour, and approaching the halfway point in the race, Campbell continues to lead. Oh no! Oh my! We have a massive accident right across The Cutting on the uphill! The #32 BMW has spun, plowing backwards into the barrier and the rear wheels are on top of the barrier! This is a bad one!
Slamming into the fence and almost going over the top, the #32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3! Charles Weerts has just been involved in a massive accident in The Cutting! This will be a safety car immediately. There's debris everywhere. Everybody is right on the pit window now, with this Full Course Yellow, and we can see right front corner damage to the #56 Ginetta G55 GT4. I don't know who is driving the Ginetta currently. But the right front corner has had a shark bite taken out of it and that has also caused the headlight and the right front fender to go cattywampus.
Dries Vanthoor who had a fabulous stint aboard the #32 BMW earlier in the day cannot believe his eyes. BMW Team WRT are shell shocked. Their leading contender of their two cars, game over. Sheldon van der Linde, the South African, qualified on pole for this race. The safety car has been scrambled, obviously. Dries Vanthoor was on the pole and four hours and 50 minutes into the race, they are done. Weerts was trying to go around the outside of the Ginetta and ended up right on top of the concrete barrier! Unbelievable!
That was a low percentage move even on a GT4 car, and Weerts, I feel, should have thought better of it. There was no chance Colin White could have moved over and given him room. Where is Colin White going to go? He cannot just press the disappear button and vanish. To quote John Hindhaugh, "unless Scotty beams him up, that Ginetta isn't going anyplace." We have seen cars catapult over that fence in the past and thankfully this time with the BMW it did not happen. But the BMW Team WRT mechanics and management cannot believe their eyes.
We are set for another restart in the race's sixth hour, working towards the halfway mark. Laurens Vanthoor steps on it and now has to fend off a pack of hungry wolves right behind him. Vanthoor runs just half a second clear of Valentino Rossi. Kelvin van der Linde is right behind trying to work heat into his Pirelli P Zero tires and behind him is the #13 Phantom Global Porsche in the hands of Swede Joel Erikssen who is the third driver sharing that automobile with Jaxon Evans and Bastian Buus. Valentino Rossi nearly loses control of the #46 BMW M4 GT3! But Rossi knew how to control that slide, after his decades, of being a champion motorcycle racer.
What is so incredible is the speed, the power that the BMW M4 GT3 has over the Audi! Holy smokes! The BMW, the sole remaining WRT BMW in this race, has incredible power on the uphill with its 3-liter twin turbo V6 in comparison with the Audi and it's atmospheric 5.2-liter V10 engine. We have a car off on the grass, stopped. It looks again like the much-troubled Ginetta we have spoken about at length today. Meanwhile, pit stop time, and it is the leader to the pit lane. Rossi and Kelvin van der Linde both hit the pit lane together.
Six hours and 20 minutes remaining, so we are in the race's second half. These boys have just completed a 32-lap stint. Just maybe they could have held out a wee bit longer. Laurens Vanthoor, too, in the #912 Porsche 911 GT3R answers the bell in the Manthey EMA pit box. We remain under safety car conditions. The top six cars make their way to pit lane. A driver change at Manthey EMA. Brand new Pirelli tires as well for the Manthey EMA Porsche. Ayhacan Guven from Turkey is now driving the Porsche and resumes in the lead of the motor race. Rossi in second, Christopher Haase is in third place. The order remains as it was before the pit stops.
Haase has taken over the #22 Audi from Kelvin van der Linde. The vastly experienced German driver is an Audi veteran, and I believe, though don't quote me on this, his surname, Haase, means rabbit, in German. Well, we may have to nickname him "the rabbit" if he begins to really begin to turn it on as this race continues and march to the front. Joel Eriksson is at the wheel of the #13 Phantom Global Racing Porsche. Broc Feeney is in for his stint at National Storage Racing in the #888 Mercedes-AMG GT3 sharing with Mikael Grenier and Will Brown.
Turkish racer Ayhancan Guven is now at the wheel of the #912 Manthey EMA "Grello" Porsche. "Grello" = green and yellow which is the paint scheme. Predominantly yellow but with lime green stripes down the center of the car. Ayhancan Guven punches it and catches everybody else napping! Holy smokes! This bloke isn't waiting for anyone to catch up. The field must make hay while the sun shines, quite literally, because there are gathering storm clouds and a gray sky at Mount Panorama. We could see raindrops here in a wee while.
We are so close to the halfway mark now, but the weather is going to play a factor. It isn't if it will, it is when it will. Whoops! The #701 Vortex runs extremely wide! It looks to get back on track. I am not sure who is driving the Vortex V8 at this stage, whether it is Julien Boilot, Lionel Amrouche, or Philippe Bonnel. Meanwhile, back to the lead scrap. Rossi and Haase are both setting up a plan here to show Guven what they are made of. Guven though, he beats them to it. He says, "boys, try and catch me! I've got the speed!" Rossi and Haase just have to follow him through and now, look at the massive queue of cars forming up behind the leaders!
Joel Eriksson darts left and then right, both ways to try making a pass on Broc Feeney! Daniel Juncadella still at the wheel of the #77 Caltex liveried Craft Bamboo Mercedes-AMG GT3. He tries punching a hole where there isn't one and now, he is trapped behind Grant Donaldson in the many laps down MARC II Mustang, car #111. Juncadella has Gounon in the #75 SunEnergy1 Mercedes glued to his rear decklid! Meanwhile, Haase is still hounding Rossi! There's no room on the inside there! Gounon is a lucky luck boy to find the track position right in front of Ricardo Feller, and now, our mate, poor old Grant Donaldson is indulging in a spot of grass track racing through Hell corner. No wonder they call the first turn here at Bathurst Hell corner, because it is, if you can't get through it!
Craft Bamboo sort of gave away their strategy saying they'd keep the Spaniard Daniel Juncadella stashed away to the second half of the race, no doubt, having him rest up in a darkened room and then, feeding him protein and carbo loading him with pasta or something at lunch time so he can go get after it. No vegemite on toast for these boys today! Blech! I would not recommend eating Vegemite. Some people may like it, but I have heard it is pretty disgusting stuff. Maybe they have fed him fish or a kangaroo steak, or maybe seafood. No fast-food meat pies or sausage rolls though, not for the race.
No desserts either. Racing drivers cannot afford to eat such sweets as damper bread, ANZAC biscuits, cream filled lamington, pavlova with pomegranates and cream, vanilla slice or fairy bread. Fairy bread is similar to a kids' birthday cake with colored sugar and icing on it. These aforementioned desserts may only be reserved for the winners at the trophy ceremony. Dani Juncadella, despite getting no dessert, is now running in sixth place for Craft Bamboo. Oh dear. We have another car backed into the fence on the run down to the Repco Dipper! Off of Brock Skyline, that is the #10 IRC GT coupe invitational class car.
That is the Supaglass Racing entry being shared by an all-Australian trio. Nick Percat, Cameron Hill, and John Hollinger are the drivers. Hollinger is at the wheel of it, now. This was the class leading car in the Invitational division. Supaglass Matt Stone Racing find themselves in big, big trouble. In this replay, screech! He's spinning down through the Repco Dipper! Don't hit the wall! Don't hit the wall! Wallop! He goes in backwards and smacks the barrier with the right rear corner of the IRC GT racer. Blimey! The #2 KFC Audi was right there!
Poor old John Hollinger was an innocent bystander. He was squeezed at Brock Skyline and down through the esses and got the worst of it. Five- and three-quarter hours left in the race and an audible has been called by WRT bringing their sole remaining BMW M4 GT3 to the pit lane for service, car #46 is in the lane as we speak. They had brand new sticker Pirelli P Zero slick tires on the car and now they can see the rain is coming, so they are swapping from the slicks to the sticker Pirelli P Zero rain tires. It does not matter though. They have an 85 second pit stop time delta that must be met but under safety car conditions you will not lose too much time.
This is a great gamble for WRT, but it is a tricky situation as well. Do you pit now? The racing surface here at Mount Panorama is not wet enough for the full wet weather tires. With the GT3 cars there is no such thing as an intermediate tire that has had grooves hand cut into it. That is just a slick tire that has had hand cut grooves put into it with a hot iron. Those do not exist anymore. They used to be commonplace in endurance sports car racing, ten, maybe twenty years ago. But not at all these days. By the time we go green it will be wet enough for the full wet tires.
Well, guess what, everybody? My thoughts are right and so are those of the pit crews. Wait 20 minutes, and the weather will change. The track here at Bathurst is getting wetter as we see great rooster tails of water plume out from behind the cars as they are released from this latest safety car intervention. Matt Campbell leads a Porsche 1-2. Campbell running just ahead of Bastian Buus who has taken over the #13 Phantom Global Racing Porsche. These drivers in the Porsche's are vastly experienced in the wet aboard Porsche's all the way through Carrera Cup which is a global championship with branches in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, you name it, and also from the Porsche Super Cup in Europe, a support series for the Formula 1 World Championship.
For the first time today, we are sailing off into the unknown on full wet weather Pirelli tires as the track here at Mount Panorama is absolutely soaked. We are into the second half of the Repco Bathurst 12 Hour. Many laps and miles still to run. Many stories still to tell. Matt Campbell leads but there is announcement on the radio from Race Control and Motorsport Australia Race Director James Taylor. No, this is not the singer/songwriter. He is the head honcho, the Race Director here at Mount Panorama for this race meeting. Wow. Race leader, car #912 Matt Campbell, and Manthey EMA have committed a pit stop breach. Therefore, they must serve a drive through penalty.
This pit stop breach is for a driver change that did not respect the 85 second minimum pit time delta. That is the "pit stop breach" the drive through penalty we heard about. Uh oh. We've got another spinner at The Cutting. This is another of the IRC GT silhouette coupes. That is the #702 car being driven in this race by veteran racer from Canada, Paul Tracy. Tracy is especially known as an IndyCar/Champ Car driver who has also made appearances in sports car racing and most recently in the now defunct Superstar Racing Experience short track stock car series.
Tracy is the 2003 CART Champ Car World Series champion and the 1990 champion in the American Racing Series which is now the steppingstone to IndyCar known as Indy NXT or Indy Next. The Cutting is a blind corner and there is no way Paul Tracy is going to be able to make a three-point turn with cars bearing down on him. Tracy sharing the #702 IRC GT from the IRC team itself, with Aussie drivers Danny Stutterd, Geoff Emery, and Max Twigg. He must rely on the marshals to tell him when it is OK to make a three-point turn.
Tracy guns the V8 motor in the IRC GT and tries to spin all the way 'round by is now still in the middle of the corner. He tried the old IndyCar trick of locking the front wheels and spinning the rears to get turned around, but it does not work with a big, heavy Grand Touring car. Good grief. He's stalled it. So, poor old Paul Tracy, the open wheel champion on two occasions, will need an assist to get going again. Meantime, under the safety car with almost seven hours of racing done and dusted, the leaders are coming again to the pit lane for scheduled service.
Matt Campbell needs to pit but he cannot serve that penalty we talked about that Race Director James Taylor mentioned on the radio, under safety car conditions. He has not stopped at his pit box. He has driven through. I think it was a drive through penalty. That is common in American and European endurance racing, but I don't know if that is part of the Australian sports car racing rulebook or what. Green flag, and now, we have a new leader. It is Bastian Buus in the #13 Phantom Global Porsche. Buus stays on the inside line, finding grip from his wet weather Pirelli P Zero tires.
He can pick his line into Hell corner. But remember, why did this corner get its name? It is hellaciously difficult to drive through. He's gone sideways! This could cost him time on the run up Mountain Straight. Buus is the minnow and Daniel Juncadella aboard the #77 Craft Bamboo Mercedes-AMG GT3 is the shark. He smells blood in the water. Buus is defending like mad against the rapid Spaniard, a Mercedes-AMG factory driver. Buus though was an expert on car placement on the restart running the car right up the middle of the grid boxes and then placing it right where Juncadella has the least chance to make a move.
Buus remains in the lead and now, it is the resumption of the #912 "Grello" Porsche vs. the #46 WRT BMW story. Matt Campbell poking his nose out to try and pass Raffaele Marciello, the new boy at BMW. Campbell has a run on Raffaele Marciello heading for The Chase. Marciello can escape because Matt Campbell is indeed coming to the pit lane to serve the penalty. Audi #2 went straight to the pit lane to serve their penalty as well, as soon as the safety car pulled into the lane after the yellow. Now, the plot thickens. The last time by, it was dry as a bone. But now, with just over four hours of racing remaining here on the mountain, it is pouring down with rain!
The weather moves across the circuit so quickly. It can be soaking wet at the top of the mountain and bone dry at the bottom. Or vice versa. You just never know what this place is going to do. It is a lot like the Nurburgring or Spa Francorchamps. Each of these places, they have their own microclimate, their own atmosphere. Darren Currie in the #111 MRA Motorsport/111 Racing MARC II Mustang, he shortcuts the corner and wants nothing to do with the esses. He says, "I'm out of here! I'm going to escape!"
Matty Campbell goes around the outside of David Wall, who is driving sensibly. Wall aboard the #93 Wall Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2. This is his car, his team. Wall, a former driver in Aussie V8 Supercars, sharing with another Supercars standout from years gone by, Tony D'Alberto, racing driver and television host Grant Denyer, and Adrian Deitz. Everyone is in tiptoe mode. You could drive your rental car down the hill faster than these boys are going. Tread carefully in this rain. Be sensible so we don't have cars spinning, slipping, and sliding off the road all over the place.
Forget the Formula 1 reality show. This is the real "Drive to Survive" here at Mount Panorama in a GT3 car in the rain! The weather fronts whether weak or strong can blow in and out of here so quickly. This makes tire choice extremely difficult, and the team strategists are going to be pulling their hair out on this one! Oh my gosh! This is serious rain! We can hear it on the trackside microphones. It is tipping down with rain here at Mount Panorama! Everyone, and I mean everyone is diving for the pit lane to change to rain tires! Drama here at Mount Panorama, and no, we didn't write this in the script, folks.
Now, here's a twist in the tale! Cameron Waters is the brave soul who is staying out on track aboard the #222 Scott Taylor Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3! This is the car raising money for charity in this race, or at least one of them. This team is sponsored by the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia. Cameron Waters sharing with Craig Lowndes and Thomas Randle, three Aussie Supercars legends. Cameron Waters rolling the dice, coming to pit lane! But it won't stick! Just over four hours to go and Cameron Waters is off in the gravel trap in the #222 Mercedes! It's the classic commentators' curse! Just as we are singing the praises of this team, they are off in the gravel trap, skittering across it as the rain continues.
Rolling the dice hasn't worked. The rain is torrential at the top of the mountain on the way back down through McPhillamy Park and Skyline. Waters is aquaplaning down the hill. Avoid the esses and go straight ahead. Again, like I said, play it smart. Don't get yourself into more trouble in these slippery conditions. Four hours to go, or just over four hours to go and it is soaking wet, and we have another spinner! The #48 Pro-Am class M Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 is now on the whirligig! Jack Le Brocq is driving that car, currently. Le Brocq sharing with Glen Wood, Garth Walden, and Justin McMillan in a quartet of drivers.
In replay, we can see Le Brocq gets into a bout of aquaplaning and then, has a massive tank slapper! He spun before Skyline! It was a reverse entry into the turn! Oh my gosh! What next in this motor race? What next?! Le Brocq tags the wall and I thought he just brushed it. Wrong. He went in there and took quite the lick. Matt Campbell, performing one of his patented early restarts to put down the power and scoot away from Maximilian Gotz in second place, third place Felipe Fraga, and the two other Mercedes' of Jules Gounon and Mikael Grenier.
It could be a wet finish to the race or a bone-dry finish. We just don't know yet. Jules Gounon trying to make a move on Felipe Fraga, but there is no room! The two other Mercedes drivers, going at it, hard. Felipe Fraga squirming around on his tires, and this will open the door indeed, for Mikael Grenier to make his move. Meanwhile, Jaxon Evans wants to make a move in The Chase on Mikael Grenier in the #888 National Storage Mercedes. He's having a look through The Chase. Grenier opens the door, but he fakes it, comes back, and... whack! He slams the door directly in Jaxon Evans face! I wonder if the stewards will take a dim view of that?
We've got a spinner coming down the mountain and it is the #111 MARC II Mustang. That car is pointing in the wrong direction, and now, the driver is reversing down the mountain. Ugh! Oh! This is painful! I don't like the look of this. We're going Full Course Yellow and now the driver of the MARC Mustang is playing the world's most dangerous game of chicken as the other cars wriggle their way by. Grant Donaldson, I must give him credit that he is doing the smart thing by reversing downhill. But, the other drivers have to know where he's going.
Donaldson backs it up onto the grass. In this replay, has he had help? Yes. He was pushed by the #47 Mercedes-AMG GT3, the Supabarn Racing Kondouris brothers' entry. That's James and Theo Kondouris sharing with David Russell and 2016 Bathurst 12 Hours winner Jonathon Webb, who that year, drove with Shane van Gisbergen and Alvaro Parente to victory in a Tekno Autosports McLaren 650S GT3. We are back to green flag racing. So, this was a short Full Course Yellow to rescue the Grant Donaldson MARC Mustang and now everything is peachy, for the time being at least.
Kelvin van der Linde puts his foot in it the quickest and is now ahead of the Phantom Global Porsche and the #46 WRT BMW. Oh no! There are more cars off the road at the bottom of The Chase! Mikael Grenier spins on the wet grass! Keep it off the track! Keep it off the track! Oh no! He's nose first in traffic! Whoa! That was a heart stopper! This is a contending car, fourth in the overall. Mikael Grenier is in trouble and could be out of contention, the car he is sharing with Broc Feeney and Will Brown.
In the replay, we see Kelvin van der Linde has moved ahead of both Jaxon Evans and Maxime Martin. The two AMG Mercedes' just for something completely different (as Monty Python would say), run into each other, and then, Grenier edges back to the racing line with Kelvin van der Linde taking evasive action on the grass, and the other two go around the front, on the tarmac, and thank God, they don't clip the spinning Mercedes! That could have been an unmitigated disaster! That's video game stuff. van der Linde wheel spins it onto the grass or between the track and the grass, and Evans and Martin just shoot right through, like the open hole was right there, in a racing video game.
Alright. We've moved now to two and three quarters of an hour away from the end of the motor race. Thomas Randle is being harried, fighting for his life, against Ayhacan Guven who is going to do all he can to make an outside pass in the "Grello" Porsche! Excuse me. That's not Randle. Randle is leading the motor race. That is the Caltex sponsored #77 Mercedes-AMG in second place of Maximilian Goetz. That was indeed a pass for position. OK. Two hours and 40 minutes no remain in the race, standard distance for a sprint event in IMSA back stateside.
We have the aforementioned Paul Tracy in the broadcast booth with John Hindhaugh and Richard Craill for a spell, and on track, we have a splitter or a spoiler or something that has fallen off one of the cars. It's a splitter, and Paul Tracy rightly points out that will cut down a tire if someone runs over it. The #222 Mercedes-AMG GT3 were at pit in when the Full Course Yellow was called. Scott Taylor Motorsports, playing the strategy game, and maybe doing so the right way. They get a free 85 second pit stop while the rest of the field is trundling around behind the safety car at 80 kilometers an hour.
Down the hill into The Chase, Bastian Buus is going for a pass on Luca Stolz! Porsche vs. Mercedes! Side by side through the kink and Buus makes the pass! Wow! That was drama! Buus is a lucky bloke to keep it on the island approaching the final corners on the circuit. Into The Chase, through the spray, we ride aboard with Ayhacan Guven in the "Grello" Porsche as he makes a pass on Thomas Randle in the #222 Mercedes. This is for the lead of the motor race. A battle of the Mercedes' and of the Aussie Supercars stars! #888 is Broce Feeney and #130 is David Reynolds. Some hip and shoulder, some argy bargy between them!
Oh boy. I told you this was getting spicy! Reynolds thinks he has the pass made and Feeney comes right back, saying "no you don't, sunshine." Next weekend, these two will be battling again here at Bathurst in the sprint race opener for the Australian Supercars championship. This is a preview of what could be to come. More troubles for the #77 Mercedes-AMG GT3. Rear suspension. Toe link damage, for Daniel Juncadella. They were called to serve a drive through penalty by the Motorsports Australia stewards. But they have bigger fish to fry now.
Juncadella makes a mistake. We rarely see this out of him. I'm surprised. Bang! Contact with the outside wall going up the hill. Thank you replay crew. The tape apes strike again. That was massive contact with the concrete wall through Sulman Park nearing the top of the hill. An hour and a half to go, as we fast forward the tape. This is a battle for the lead between Luca Stolz and Bastian Buus. Never mind. This is the net race lead between Ayhancan Guven and Bastian Buus. Blue Porsche vs. "Grello" Porsche and big understeer for Buus! Guven is doing all he can to make a pass but Buus is not letting him by.
Finally, Guven has had enough and makes his move. Nope. Wait a minute. Hang on here. Bastian Buus is not washed up yet. Guven goes around the outside, and Buus is forced to give it up. That was great, hard, clean racing. They didn't touch. That's the important part. OK. 55 minutes left. This is money time. Now we return to the Christopher Haase and Maxime Martin story in their battle for fourth. Martin pokes his nose in on Haase who has to stop the car to get it to turn in Griffins Bend. Martin has to go offline, and Haase is in no man's land as well!
Oh dear! What will become of this?! Martin has enough oomph in that BMW straight six to get around the Audi! Wow! That was a sizzler of a move! He had to get the job done there because if he tried it in The Cutting, with the single line through that turn at the top of the mountain, there's just no way. Buus is in the lane from second spot for tires. 52 minutes to go and a crucial stop now for Manthey EMA and the #912 Porsche. Take an extra second if you need it. Matt Campbell has track position, but the other thing he has currently, stone cold Pirelli tires.
Gounon crosses the start/finish line while Campbell is now halfway up Mountain Straight. As the tire comes up to temperature, Jules Gounon could find a way to close the gap, which is now 20 and a half seconds, but will undoubtedly shrink in the coming laps. As it stands now, Campbell can bring the tire in gently and might just be able to withstand the pressure from Gounon. We are inside the last hour, with 47 minutes left on the board, and there's more trouble for the Vortex V8. Julien Boillot has spun, again.
He also brought out the first safety car this morning and has spun another time. He has driven backwards pointing the car so he can see down Mountain Straight from the top of Griffins Bend to avoid clattering into any other oncoming cars. He's going to try and flick turn it, but trust me, he will not have enough steering lock to do the job. Now, he is right on the apex, stuck on the curb. Safety Car scramble. Oh boy. Campbell, Gounon, and Evans will be liner stern on the restart. I think we have ourselves a three-horse race to the end. I don't know if Maxime Martin and Christopher Haase are still contenders in this thing.
OK. It is time for the restart with half an hour to go in the 2024 running of the Repco Bathurst 12 Hours. It is all to play for in a race between the four German sports car brands. Porsche, BMW, Mercedes Benz, and Audi, racing for bragging rights and for glory to be the GT3 kings of the mountain, quite literally. Behind the top four there are other star drivers duking it out. Cameron Waters, Mikael Grenier, Maro Engel, Jamie Whincup, and Ross Gunn complete the top ten. Alessio Picariello is also back there in 11th spot.
Gounon drafting up Mountain Straight with loads of torque from the V8. He is trying to get inside Queenslander Matt Campbell's mind, playing games with him. These games are not working. Campbell can read Gounon like a book. Don't put the wheels off because it is still damp offline. You know Jules Gounon wants this. He wants a fourth Bathurst victory. Nobody and I mean nobody, in either the 1,000 for the Aussie Supercars or in the 12 Hours for the GT3 cars have ever gone beyond the hat trick. There are drivers with more wins here, particularly in the Bathurst 1,000, but not in successive years.
Matt Campbell and Jaxon Evans were house mates together and they both trained at the McElray Porsche driving school in Queensland, Australia. In the Pro-Am class there has been a change for the lead. Alessio Picariello has passed the walking wounded #88 Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the hands of Jamie Whincup. The Bend Manthey EMA passes Triple Eight JMR. He will also take the class lead from Ross Gunn because the driver for The Heart of Racing by SPS Mercedes-AMG GT3 must serve a pit lane penalty. Jaxon Evans and Maxime Martin negotiate lapped traffic through McPhillamy Park. Jules Gounon is stymied down the hill by the GT4 McLaren Artura.
It is only a single lane through this part of the circuit. That is, I believe, the #230 Method Motorsport McLaren Artura with Tom McLennan taking the car to the flag. McLennan is holding Gounon up and this is killing his progress. Jaxon Evans is planted right on Gounon's rear bumper. Gounon pops the nose to the outside, but he can't get by. He is blocked by McLennan in the McLaren. He can't run two wide because it is wet down there. But now, check this out. Cameron Waters is having a go at it. He is right up behind the Audi of Christopher Haase. Second place through seventh place are running nose to tail as we get closer to the finish here at Mount Panorama.
Gounon, Evans, Martin, Haase, Waters, and Grenier. With just over seven minutes to go, the two packs of cars have broken apart. Campbell is now ahead of Gounon by 5.4 seconds. He is up the road and should be in the clear. Maxime Martin has some daylight between himself and Haase, but he is closing on Evans and Gounon. Jaxon Evans pulls the pin! He is throwing the block, and he is going to pass Jules Gounon come hell or high water! Jaxon Evans has pried open the door, and Maxime Martin is alongside him. Oh my! Into Murrays corner, Martin is going to try to get them both in one go! Maxime Martin is making his move on Evans and Gounon at the same time!
Talk about killing two birds with one stone! But it isn't going to work! Martin's heroics are going to fall flat! Martin is off in the grass on the front straightaway and this means both Evans and Haase will pass the Belgian BMW racer! Haase is now running to the inside of Evans! Evans thought he was in the clear, but that isn't the case. Evans was sure he was home and hosed. Not even close! Here comes Haase! His surname in German means rabbit. Well, we might just have to nickname him "The Rabbit" from now on. They scream towards turn one at Hell corner and Christopher Haase is staring down a potential podium in the 2024 Bathurst 12 Hours.
This isn't done. Evans in the Porsche is running skinny. Haase is nose to nose with him up Mountain Straight! Haase has the preferred line into Griffins Bend. This is it. The clock is at zero. One more lap to go. Matt Campbell could be on the verge of his second endurance sports car race win in as many weeks. He won with Porsche Penske in the Porsche 963 at the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Will he win the Bathurst 12 Hours with Manthey EMA in the Porsche 911 GT3R (992)? Well, well, well. What a wild race we have seen today. It has not been a pristine performance from Manthey EMA. They have made mistakes, but they have been able to recover from them and have shown speed all day.
Laurens Vanthoor, Ayhancan Guven, and Matt Campbell have gone for it all day. You will have dramas in a 12 hour race no matter what track it is at and no matter what your driver lineup looks like, or for that matter, it does not matter if you are racing GT production cars, touring cars, or full-fledged prototypes. It is how you recover from the dramas. #912 and #911 have both had dramas and they have recovered beautifully and are using the speed of their race cars. The fastest car will win the race. Laurens Vanthoor has been trying to win this race for years in cars that have not been up to snuff.
He will win and so will his co-driver, Matt Campbell, who will win the Bathurst 12 Hours for the second time in his career! Porsche and Manthey EMA win the 2024 Repco Bathurst 12 Hours! Matt Campbell did it in 2019 and did it before SunEnergy1 went on a tear. He breaks the streak and breaks their hearts. The way this bloke is racing, man, we ought to call him "The Heartbreaker". Bathurst has delivered again. In 2019, Campbell won in 2019 for Porsche and Earl Bamber Motorsports. That day he was teamed with Dirk Werner and Dennis Olsen.
Yasser Shahin, another native Australian will win his home race in the Pro-Am division alongside his co-drivers in the sister #911 Manthey EMA The Bend Motorsports Park, Shell V Power Porsche he shared all race long with Harry King and Alessio Picariello. They were a lap down in the kitty litter at the top of the mountain earlier in the day and they too made a comeback. Also winning in the Silver class, the #93 Wall Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Tony D'Alberto, David Wall, Grant Denyer, and Adrian Deitz.
In the Invitational class, the victory goes to the Mercedes coupe look-a-like bodied #20 T2 Racing/Local Search IRC GT driven by Cedric Sbirrazzuoli, Daniel Jilesen, and Adam Hargraves, the car that got absolutely smashed in qualifying into the wall with a spare tail section, and they have come back to win. Many teams before them have done what they did, repairing a car overnight after a qualifying accident at Mount Panorama, and coming back from adversity to win the motor race. Mark Griffith's little team that could, the #19 Team Nineteen Mercedes-AMG GT4 win in the GT4 class with Mark Griffith the team boss, Adam Christodoulou, and Daniel Bilski.
Matty Campbell is the hero for Porsche winning by 2.6 seconds for Porsche for the second time. What a wild race today. Laurens Vanthoor has broken his Bathurst duck. Christopher Haase, too, he comes home on the podium with co-drivers Kelvin van der Linde and Liam Talbot. That was a massive effort for the Wash It Team MPC Audi as well. Some other great results, fourth place overall for the #13 Phantom Global Racing Porsche of Bastian Buus, Joel Eriksson, and Jaxon Evans, and in fifth, the surviving WRT BMW M4 GT3, the #46 car of Valentino Rossi, Maxime Martin, and Raffaele Marciello.
Wall Racing are going to have a massive party tonight at Grant Denyer's house just around the corner. So, here are your class winners before we say goodbye from Mount Panorama.
Overall/Pro: #912 Vanthoor/Guven/Campbell Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3R (992)
Pro-Am: #911 Picariello/King/Shahin The Bend Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3R (991.II)
Silver: #93 D'Alberto/Wall/Denyer/Deitz Wall Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2
GT4: #19 Griffith/Christodoulou/Bilski Team Nineteen Mercedes-AMG GT4
Invitational: #20 Sbirrazzuoli/Jilesen/Hargraves T2 Racing/Local Search IRC GT
Grello is on top at Mount Panroama! Celebrations for Porsche! Another Bathurst 12 Hours is in the bag! We'll see you again next year, for another fantastic GT3 race at Mount Panorama with more brands, more cars, and more drivers to come. For now, so long from Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. We'll see you for the next Intercontinental GT Challenge event of the year at a legendary event that is new to the IGTC calendar, the ADAC Ravenol Nurburgring 24 Hours at the Nurburgring Nordschleife, the first weekend in June.
For now, it's goodbye from Mount Panorama in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia.
No comments:
Post a Comment