MOTORSPORT: Bathurst 12-Hour more worldly

The Bathurst 12-Hour is taking another step towards becoming one of the world's great endurance races.

The rules for next February 7's 12-Hour will bring it more into line with other enduros around the globe. And the changes increase the likelihood of even stronger car and driver line-ups.

The event already has been attracting many brands of exotic machinery and leading drivers, making huge strides and gaining wide recognition in the past couple of years – although domestically its exposure is still dwarfed by October's 1000km classic for V8 Supercars.

Car classes and the driver classification system are being revised, with regulations to be published soon at Bathurst12hour.com.au; and entries are to open on July 1.

Claude Surmont, the technical director for the Stephane Ratel Organisation (STO), which organises the primarily-European Blancpain Endurance and Sprint GT series, will perform the same role at Mt Panorama next February.

The 12-Hour will also continue to use SRO's balance of performance (BOP) criteria.

All drivers contemplating racing at Bathurst in February will now be required to seek a platinum, gold, silver or bronze rating from the world governing body of motor sport, the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), by the end of October this year.

The event will continue to have a two-tier model for driver classification, including "seeded" (professional and semi-professional) and "unseeded" (amateur) drivers.

Drivers in the premier class of cars ranked platinum and gold will be classified as "seeded" drivers, with silver and bronze drivers unseeded.

There will be four classes of cars – A (GT3 outright, split into pro-am and amateur), B (GT3 Cup cars), C (GT4) and I (Invitational).

Cars that ran in the production car classes previously remain eligible to compete in the new combined Invitational category, with a benchmark lap time of 2 minutes 10 seconds.

Only cars homologated up to this year, along with having competed in the Blancpain Endurance Series, will be eligible for next February, leaving any 2016 cars ineligible until 2017.

All cars will now be allowed three drivers and a maximum of four.

The outright GT3 class has previously been restricted to three drivers per car.

Entrants in GT3 (Pro-Am) will be allowed a maximum of two seeded drivers, and those in GT3 (Am) one, with no restrictions on seeded drivers in the other classes.

"Recent changes within the FIA have enabled us to get any driver categorised under the FIA system," 12-Hour director James O'Brien said.

"This change now puts the onus on the driver to get classified by the FIA and reduces the burden on the organising committee.

"We hope this initiative will result in a more transparent, robust and fairer system all round.

"The event has secured its place on the international GT endurance calendar.

"However, we aim to continue the event's growth such that it becomes a 'blue riband race' attracting the very best teams and drivers from around the world.

"Claude Surmont's international experience with GT3 machinery should ensure our technical processes are run to the same high standard that all SRO series operate at."