Mark Webber gives Bathurst thumbs up

Retired Australian Formula One winner and WEC sports car champion Mark Webber was in attendance at the 2017 Bathurst 12 Hour event this weekend, dubbing the race a "win-win" for Aussie motorsport and a "world-class race".

With a range of exotic GT3 race cars such as the McLaren 650S, Lamborghini Huracan, Mercedes-Benz GT and Ferrari 488 that regularly lap the 6.2km circuit faster than V8 Supercars, the race is fast becoming a must-attend for the world's racing elite, with a number of former F1 drivers having competed over the years.

"We should be totally celebrating the amount of manufacturers here," he told a small group of Aussie journalists during the race weekend.

Splitting his time between Australia and Europe, Webber hung up his racing boots last year and is now an F1 TV commentator and Porsche ambassador and, in his first visit to The Mountain in over two decades, praised the Bathurst 12 Hour race.

"It's great. It's a big manufacturer effort. It's good that all the Europeans want to come and look at the track, and the domestic local guys are keen to have a blast as well."

"Any racing driver wants to go quicker, so when you get to drive a faster race car at any point that's always a nice feeling. So it's a brilliant balance between international and local guys wanting to have a crack around here in the world's best GT cars."

Screened for the first time in its entirely on free-to-air television in Australia in 2017, the 12-Hour endurance race is attracting bigger audiences, and now sees Australia's top Supercar car drivers along with some of the best GT3 pilots from abroad lining up to race.

Asked how he rated the Bathurst 12 Hour race versus the Bathurst 1000 Supercars event, Webber said: "I've never been to the Bathurst 1000. The last time I was here was 1995, 22 years ago! I'd imagine it's a different audience a different demographic."

He observed that "this [race] embraces another brilliant opportunity to have more guys come out here and race. The more the merrier. It's getting better."

In 2014 Mark Webber said he would consider a tilt at the Bathurst 12 Hour race but now he's retired he says it's unlikely, laughing at the question.

"I still get asked, I just say "why?". But there's lots of older guys still racing, when I saw Russel [Ingall] and [Mark] Skaifey on the entry list, I thought wow!"

The Australian motor racing hero says his racing days are over insisted that the best bit about retirement was a more relaxed travel schedule.

"Seven weeks on no planes. That was a new 20-year record for me! Yeah that felt pretty good. And I wasn't overly excited to pack my bag … that's definitely been the highlight," Webber said.