MOTORSPORT: Lowndes back in 12-Hour – with Audi

Craig Lowndes will lead the return of V8 Supercar drivers to the Bathurst 12-Hour.

And Lowndes will return in an Audi.

V8 Supercar drivers missed this year’s Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour because of the clash with their test weekend at Sydney Motorsport Park. However, that test has been scrapped for next year and the V8 Supercars organisation has taken over promotion of the 12-Hour from James O’Brien’s Yeehah Events.

Lowndes will drive a new R8 LMS for Audi Customer Sport/JAMEC-Pem Racing, but all his co-drivers have not been named yet.

The 2015 Bathurst 1000 winner raced Audis in the 12-Hour from 2011 until 2013 but his victory in the event last year came in a Ferrari 458 he shared with John Bowe, Mika Salo and Peter Edwards. In that Maranello Motorsport-prepared entry Lowndes took the chequered flag at Mt Panorama narrowly ahead of German GT star Maxi Buhk in a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG.

The modern-day ‘King of the Mountain’ said he had “a little bit of unfinished business there after being on the cusp of victory a couple of times” with the German marque.

In 2011, driving with Warren Luff and Mark Eddy, Lowndes qualified on pole and they finished second to a similar Audi of Canadian-born Hong Kong driver Darryl O’Young and Germans Chris Mies and Marc Basseng.

Mies is now leading this year’s Australian GT Championship (which concludes at New Zealand’s Highlands Park in a fortnight) for the Jamec-Pem team owned by Steven McLaughlan and will be in another 12-Hour entry for that outfit with other international drivers.

Lowndes said he felt, returning to Audi, that “we have one of the most competitive new-generation GT3 cars in the world and an opportunity to really take the fight to Ferrari and Nissan”.

A Nismo-run Nissan GT-R driven by Japan’s Katsumasa Chiyo and two computer gamers (Germany’s Florian Strauss and Belgium’s Wolfgang Reip) won this year’s 12-Hour in another thrilling finish.

New Zealander Shane Van Gisbergen and Nissan’s Rick Kelly are among other V8 Supercar drivers likely to return to the 12-Hour. Six-time champion Jamie Whincup has ruled it out despite testing an Audi R8 at Sydney Motorsport Park this year.