Brabham and Youlden create history at Bathurst

Brabham and our own Luke Youlden rule Bathurst after logging the fastest official lap in the history of Mount Panorama.

With Youlden at the wheel, the Brabham BT62 supercar lapped the track in 1min 58.67sec seconds today (Saturday) to clip more than a second off the previous mark and handily undercut the fastest GT3 cars jostling for this weekend’s Bathurst 12 Hour crown and the Supercars that contest the Bathurst 1000 each October.

It’s the first time a Brabham (pictured right with Youlden) has held the Bathurst record since 1967, when open-wheeler ace Kevin Bartlett cracked the first 100-mile-per-hour lap at the track and managed a time of 2:17.7 in a Repco Brabham BT11 -- long before the track was stretched to 6.21km with The Chase on Conrod Straight.

“Awesome. That’s a bit of history,” David Brabham told carsales as his BT62 supercar, painted in patriotic green-and-gold, was rolled into the garage.

Youlden, the 2017 Bathurst 1000 winner and carsales track tester only needed four laps to wipe the previous time (shared between himself from a Thursday run and Christopher Mies in an Audi R8 last November) from the record books.

“It’s mega. I still haven’t got near the limit across the top but it was good enough,” he said.

“I’m happy, but disappointed at the same time because I know we could have gone quicker. I definitely think the car has a 56 in it.”

The Brabham was tweaked after its first Bathurst run on Thursday, also gaining a set of softer-compound Michelin tyres in addition to revised suspension and aero settings.

But the Brabham did not run trouble-free, as a problem with the traction control led to a mid-run crisis meeting before Brabham told Youlden to disable it.

“He had to turn the TC off, then off he went,” Brabham confirmed.

Youlden opened his run with a time of 2:01.920, then went slower at 2:03.610 while the radio ran hot as he talked to chief engineer Paul Ceprinich about the traction control.

“Just turn it off and run to the end,” was the message from the pit bunker.

Youlden cracked on with his third lap, showing serious potential with a 2:00.060, before uncorking his fourth and final lap and re-setting the record books.

“I’m relieved. Happy and relieved,” Brabham said as the $2 million supercar was packed away.

“Brabham is about racing, this is a racetrack, and this is where we belong.

“To come here and do this is great. To do a lap like that, with so little testing and track time, is outstanding,” Brabham stated.

Youlden is racing in tomorrow's Liqui Moly Bathurst 12 Hour with David Reynolds and Yasser Shahin in The Bend Motorsport Park sponsored Erebus Mercedes-AMG GT3. Reynolds will have the chance to start the ProAm entry from pole after logging a second fastest time in qualifying to run second last in the event's Top 10 Shootout later today.