MOTORSPORT: Bathurst 12-Hour another world

Fifty cars, 16 marques, six classes and a driver line-up to match ... February 9 is promising to be a great day on The Mountain

Strongest field of GT cars in Australian history

It will be almost twice as long as the Bathurst 1000, have almost twice as many cars and more than three times as many makes, 16, as V8 Supercar racing will have this year (five, with the addition of Volvo).

A high proportion of the cars and drivers for the Bathurst 12-Hour on February 9 are coming from overseas. It will be the strongest field of GT cars assembled in Australia – the best of them several seconds a lap faster than a V8 Supercar, perhaps coming close to breaking the 2-minute barrier on the resurfaced 6.23km Mt Panorama circuit.

The driver line-up includes several with Formula One experience and many V8 Supercar stars – five Great Race winners among them. Many others from abroad and at home have impressive racing records and this year an element of celebrity returns.

Movie star Eric Bana has been confirmed today as one of three drivers in a Lamborghini Gallardo GT3 for the February 9 round-the-clock race.

“I am thrilled that my calendar has allowed me to once again test myself at one of the world’s most demanding circuits,” Bana said.

“The car is fantastic to drive and we are there to have some serious fun amongst an incredible line-up of international A-level endurance teams and drivers.”

Entries for what has become Bathurst’s other great race with a growing international reputation closed in mid-December, when the field reached its capacity of 55 cars.

Five have vanished since (including three Seat Leon Supercopas that have wiped out Class E) but the 50 remaining are still a record – one more than last year’s edition, won by one of the Mercedes SLS AMGs (pictured) from Betty Klimenko’s Erebus Motorsport driven by Germans Bernd Schneider, Thomas Jaeger and Alex Roloff.

The announcement over the past couple of days of almost the full driver list for this year’s event has coincided with the death at 76 of Ivan Stibbard, the man who ran the Bathurst 1000 for the Australian Racing Drivers Club in the event’s heyday through the 1980s until the mid-1990s. They were the days of mega fields, multiple classes and the late Peter Brock as King of the Mountain.

While the 12-Hour has numerous classes it is a much different event to that Stibbard oversaw. Seventy per cent of this field is exotic cars, so it doesn’t have the same connection to everyday motoring for ordinary people. But its diversity and increasing profile is putting Australia on the international map in a different way to what the Great Race has.

“The Bathurst 12-Hour is geared towards the GT vehicles, but one of the great strengths of the race is the broad spectrum of vehicles competing,” event director James O’Brien said. “Bathurst was born on class racing and independent teams innovating at the toughest proving ground available to them.”

The 18 entries in Class A for the modern GT3 cars vying for outright honours this year comprise eight marques. In alphabetical order they are Audi, BMW, Chevrolet, Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Mercedes and Nissan.

The McLaren is an MP4-12C in which Tony and Klark Quinn and Scottish driver Andrew Kirkaldy will give the brand its first competitive start in a Bathurst enduro. Kirkaldy’s CRS Racing has been heavily involved in the development of the car for racing.

There are three Gullwing Merc SLSs entered. One of the Erebus Mercs will have three Germans at the wheel again – top gun Schneider, dumped V8 Supercar driver but GT specialist Maro Engel and 23-year-old Nico Bastian, a Bathurst rookie who excelled in Germany’s Nurburgring 24-Hour last year.

Klimenko’s other car will have three Australians in the seat – recent Erebus recruit Will Davison, veteran Greg Crick and young former Formula Ford champion and Erebus Academy graduate Jack Le Brocq, with Erebus V8 Supercar driver Lee Holdsworth – who was in this car last year – mentoring Le Brocq.

The other SLS is entered by European team HTP Motorsport with one of last year’s winners, Jaeger, among its drivers.

There are four Audi R8-LMS Ultras – three from overseas, the other entered by Rod Salmon with Jason Bright and Warren Luff among the line-up – and four Ferrari F458s, one of them containing Craig Lowndes, John Bowe and ex-F1 star Mika Salo.

The two BMW Z4s entered by Vita4One Racing – winner of five straight FIA GT Championships and the first FIA GT World Championship the next season – are expected to be contenders for outright honours. Vita4One’s German lead driver and team manager Michael Bartels is returning to the Mountain after winning his class in the 2003 Bathurst 24-Hour in a Porsche GT3 Cup Car.

Nissan is bringing its GT-R back to Bathurst 22 years after its victory in the 1000 was famously booed. Rick Kelly, its top V8 Supercar driver, heads a four-man line-up with three internationals under the Nismo Global Exchange.

The Lambos in Class A are Gallardo LP560-4s, with Steven Richards in one of them, while the Chevrolet Corvette line-up includes Greg Murphy and Ivan Capelli of F1 fame.

Erebus general manager Barry Ryan said the entry list “includes some more very successful international teams this year” but that “we have the best car, the best drivers and this team has a full 12 months of experience with the cars under their belts”.

Among the host of Porsches in Class B is a 997 with ex-V8Supercar racer but Porsche specialist Alex Davison and American champion and Le Mans 24-Hour class winner Patrick Long, a two-time visitor to the Gold Coast 600 but making his Bathurst debut.

“Some people say it’s a lot like the Nurburgring Nordschleife [the world’s most revered circuit, known as the “Green Hell”], some people say it’s a lot like a street circuit on steroids – I don’t know what to expect,” Long said.

The four entries in Class C – two Lotus, a BMW M3 and a Ginetta G50 – take the total of GT cars to 35.

The production-based machinery in classes D (invitational over 3000cc) and F (invitational up to 3000cc) accounts for another 12 entries. Three of the five in Class F are Fiat Abarth 500s – one with carsales.com.au Editor in Chief Mike Sinclair among its four drivers.

The three Class I entries are MARC Focus GTCs, new “All-Aussie” cars entered by Ryan McLeod and making their racing debut but with driver line-ups still unconfirmed, although Glenn Seton and Russell Ingall recently tested the cars.

The list of suppliers to the project, using the Ford Focus shape, includes Pace Innovations on the chassis and suspension, Paul Morris Motorsport for engine development, MoTeC for engine management, data logging and power management, and Albins for the transaxle and driveline.

Photo credit: Nathan Wong

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MOTORSPORT: Bathurst 12-Hour another world

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