Bathurst 12 Hour to expand

The promoter of the Liqui Moly Bathurst 12 Hour has visions to evolve the event from a ‘regular’ endurance race to an Australian “car fan destination”.

But Director of the event, Supercars Australia’s John Casey, reassured motoring.com.au the intention was to evolve the event rather than introduce wholesale change.

“We have an opportunity to continue to develop the race and the event incrementally,” Casey told motoring.com.au.

“As custodian of the 12 Hour, it’s our obligation is to continue to make it great,” he said.

Casey said suggestions that the Bathurst 12 Hour could evolve into the Aussie equivalent of the Goodwood Festival of Speed were “too grand”.

“We’re looking for opportunities to make improvement without changing what makes it a wonderful race.”

Supercars Australia is actively seeking stronger ties with a wider pool of manufacturers via the endurance event.

Gaining stature quickly as an international GT3 endurance event, the 12 Hour has the past two years attracted growing support from prestige and sports car brands including Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes-AMG, Bentley and Audi.

The GT4 class is expected to bring other marques to the race and potentially the ‘festival’ – including, for example, Ford via the Multimatic-built Mustang GT4.

This support currently includes modest motor show style displays and other activities including an expansion of on-track opportunities.

Casey says there’s scope for manufacturers to grow both their on and off-track presence at the event. But he’s not looking to create a quasi Australian Motor Show. Instead, he says, the event’s focus is to create opportunities that are unique or tailored for each brand.

“On arrival this year fans were greeted by a Ferrari F40, a new Ferrari display, AMGs and McLaren’s – it doesn’t get much better than that,” Casey stated.

“The Bathurst 12 Hour’s Manufacturers Walk gives the brands a chance to show off their road car products and link road and track. That’s great for the racing teams too,” he said.

An expansion of on-track activities will also be targeted – before and after the race event proper.

The first time this year manufacturers were encouraged to set benchmark lap times for production registered streetcars. The 12 Hour program included dedicated time for these sessions.

Although only Mercedes-AMG took up the challenge, both Ferrari and Audi had consumer and dealer based activities on track during the race weekend. Porsche and Nissan were due to host consumer and media events on-track straight after raceday.

Laptimes measured at Germany's Nurburgring have long been considered a global benchmark for performance cars. The ability to register a time that one of the world's other premier public road courses has significant attraction to sporting marques.

Mercedes-AMG air freighted one of its brand-new GT R performance coupes for its lap record attempt. The car was driven by longtime Mercedes AMG ambassador and racer, Bernd Schneider.

Schneider's lap time of 2m.16.500 would have qualified the GT R on the grid for Sundays 12-hour race

Two events into its ownership, Supercars influence on the Bathurst 12 Hour has been ‘light touch’. That’s the way Casey would like it to stay.

“We want the Bathurst 12 Hour to be an event for people who just love cars… But at the heart of it always will be a genuinely international world class endurance race,” he said