MOTORSPORT: Flying Kiwi gets his Bathurst wish

He’s been Australasia’s top motorsport export to North America but Bathurst has been absent from his CV. Now Scott Dixon is going to tick ‘The Mountain’ off his bucket list.
Less than six months before he turns 40, the Brisbane-born New Zealander will finally get to fulfil his dream to race at Mt Panorama.

He’s long been wanting to do it and Indianapolis-based Dixon is coming to Bathurst in late January for the 19th running of the Bathurst 12-Hour on February 2.

He’s entered to drive a V8 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 for Swiss team R-Motorsport, which was runner-up in the event last February with a V12 Vantage.

Dixon will be partnered by Bathurst veteran Rick Kelly, a two-time winner of the 1000km ‘Great Race’ for Supercars each October, and Jake Dennis, a 24-year-old Englishman who was one of three drivers in the Vantage that finished little more than 3 seconds behind the Porsche 911 GT3-R – in which Australian Matt Campbell was victorious – last February.

Dennis, no relation to long-time McLaren boss Ron Dennis, has since raced in the DTM – the German touring car championship – for R-Motorsport.
Dixon, who won an Australian Drivers’ Championship in 1999 racing in the short-lived Formula Holden open-wheeler series, will be the star attraction at The Mountain in seven weeks’ time.

He’s won 46 IndyCar races, behind only legendary Americans A.J. Foyt (67) and Mario Andretti (52), and nine more than Australian Will Power.

Dixon has also been the series champion five times to Power’s once, and, like the Toowoomba product, has won the Indianapolis 500.

He’s also had success in sports car endurance racing but has long said that, as he gets older, he wants to “try a few different things” – and Spanish great Fernando Alonso’s diversification away from Formula 1 in recent years has been an inspiration to him.

Dixon’s preference for Bathurst has always been the 12-Hour rather than the 1000.

“I have never raced at Bathurst, but I’ve watched races at Mt Panorama back when I was a teenager,” Dixon said.

“What I like most about the circuit is the high commitment, especially across the top, the high-speed passages and then down the Chase and all the way to the last corner.

“It’s much like a street course with the concrete walls and the very confined spots.

“I’ve done GT racing with four Le Mans 24-hour races and other endurance events, but never GT3.

“I love doing the long-distance races. It complements quite well with the IndyCar series at the moment to do the Daytona 24-Hour and Sebring 12-Hour, but also Petit Le Mans (another American enduro at Road Atlanta), which was the first endurance race I did back in 1999.

“I know Rick Kelly and I teamed up with his brother Todd to do the Gold Coast (Supercar) races back in 2010.

“My expectations for the [Bathurst] 12-Hour, with the calibre of the team and the drivers that I am joining, we’ve got to go in with the mindset of we’re going to be successful.

“It’s always difficult with the ‘balance of performance’ and how each car is categorised. I just hope I can get up to speed quick enough and be a good addition to what is going to be a very strong team.

“I’m really looking forward to it and it’s really nice to get back to Australia.”
R-Motorsport will field a second V8 Vantage at Bathurst but the driver line-up has not been announced yet.

Porsche and McLaren are eyeing returns to top-level sports car racing – but they have one potentially insurmountable stipulation.

They want to be able to race the same cars in the European-run World Endurance Championship, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and America’s IMSA series.

The WEC will usher in what are being called Le Mans Hypercars next year, while new rules for a second-generation of what are known as Daytona prototypes are due in the US in 2022.

The head of Porsche factory motorsport, Pascal Zurlinden, said at the weekend that the German marque – the most successful in Le Mans history one that also has excelled in America – would be interested if there was “a global solution”.

“If you can build one race car and run both sides of the Atlantic … that’s what we do with the GT,” Zurlinden told Racer.com.

“We would just have to have a closer look at the costs.

“If you really can build one car [for both] … it’s definitely an option.”

McLaren Racing chief executive Zak Brown said he would love to field cars in the WEC and the American endurance classics – Daytona, Sebring and Petit Le Mans.

“Our concern is the current budgets,” said Brown, referencing reports that Toyota will still be spending US$40 million a year on Le Mans Hypercars when they replace the existing LMP1s.

“But if they (the European and American governing bodies) land on a common platform then I could see us racing both [sides of the Atlantic].”

Brown said McLaren would need to have “McLaren DNA” in its chassis – something that the existing Daytona prototype rules preclude.

Apart from Toyota, Aston Martin is the other big-name manufacturer already committed to the Le Mans Hypercar era with its Valkyrie model built in collaboration with Formula 1 team Red Bull Racing.