MOTORSPORT: Mega entry for Bathurst 12-Hour

Twenty of the 55 cars entered will come from overseas.

Entries have been received from 10 countries, including three each from Germany and Britain, two from the United States and five from New Zealand.
Seventeen brands and 22 models appear on the entry list, with 30 cars in the outright class.

Among the Class A entries are two Porsche 911s, while there are another 10 Porsches in Class B - eight 997s and two 911s.

Class C has an Aston Martin Vantage, a Lotus Exige and a Ginetta G50, making 43 entries in the three GT classes, which the race organisers boast is “the largest grid of pure GT cars assembled in Australia”.

Another dozen cars are entered in the two invitational classes -- for production-based vehicles and endurance racing specials.

The seven in Class D are four BMWs, an Audi, a Daytona Sportscar and a Subaru BRZ, while in Class I are the three MARC Focus V8s and a pair of ex-Grand-Am Mazda RX-8s.

See the full Bathurst 12-Hour entry list here: <<<<<<< http://bathurst12hour.com.au/event-info/entry-list >>>>>>>

V8 Supercar drivers have been precluded from participating in the February 8 enduro because of the clash with pre-season test for the touring car series that weekend at Sydney Motorsport Park.

There also will be a clash of telecasts, with the 12-Hour on the Seven network (the first eight hours on 7mate and the last four on the main channel) and V8 Supercars starting its rich new association with pay service Fox.

While driver line-ups for the 12-Hour are not finalised yet, the event will include competitors of the calibre of Mika Salo and, for the first time, David Brabham.

Salo, an ex-Formula One star and one-time Ferrari factory driver, shared the Ferrari that won last February with Craig Lowndes, John Bowe and Peter Edwards.

Bowe will be partnered in a Bentley next time with Brabham, the youngest son of Australia’s late triple F1 world champion Sir Jack and an ex-F1 driver himself, as well as a Le Mans 24-Hour winner -- once outright, and a multiple class victor.

John Martin, the 2006 Australian Formula Ford champion who raced open-wheelers overseas for several years before turning to sports cars in recent times, is another likely starter.

Many other international stars are sure to be in the 12-Hour when the line-ups are confirmed closer to race weekend.

Despite the absence of the V8 Supercar brigade, the NSW government remains strongly supportive of Bathurst’s other “great race” through its tourism and major events agency Destination NSW.

The state’s deputy premier and tourism and major events minister Troy Grant has said the mega entry list “confirms the international appeal and prestige of Australian’s longest endurance motor race and iconic Mt Panorama circuit”.

Meanwhile, a regular Bathurst 12-Hour competitor, Perth businessman Steve Wyatt, shared the Ferrari that won the weekend’s Gulf 12-Hour in Abu Dhabi.
This year’s Australian GT champion with Erebus Motorsport, Richard Muscat, co-drove a Mercedes SLS that finished a lap down in fourth place.

Another Australian, Liam Talbot, was in the Ferrari with MotoGP superstar Jorge Lorenzo that won the Gentleman Class despite causing a caution period late in the race.

Whincup knocked out previous ROC champion, French F1 driver Romain Grosjean, starred in the new Stadium Super Trucks -- one of seven types of vehicle the 16 competitors drove - and was only ousted in the semis by eventual winner David Coulthard by 0.17 seconds.

Whincup had beaten American NASCAR star Kurt Busch in the quarter-finals when they raced Audi R8s on the 2.3km parallel outdoor track at the island’s Bushy Park.

The other machines raced in the 26th ROC -- after a year’s absence -- were VW Polo RXs, Euro NASCARs, the special ROC cars, KTM- X-Bows and the Ariel Atom Cup open-wheelers.

Whincup said he had been much more comfortable with left-hand-drive machinery after his difficulties two years ago in Bangkok and preferred the longer track this time.

Australia’s other contestant and the oldest at the ROC, motorcycle legend Mick Doohan, was not as comfortable on the Barbados track and was eliminated in the first round of individual competition.

The previous day the Aussies were ousted early in the Nations Cup, although Whincup notched one win.

Denmark’s “Mr Le Mans” Tom Kristensen and Norway’s world rallycross champion and former world rally champion Petter Solberg won the Nations Cup as Team Nordic but were nowhere near as successful the following day.

Coulthard and Williams F1 test driver Susie Wolff were runners-up in the Nations Cup for Scotland.

Coulthard, a 13-time F1 grand prix winner, was crowned champion of champions 24 hours later by defeating young German Pascal Wehrlein, the Mercedes F1 team’s reserve driver and a race winner this year in Germany’s DTM touring car series, in the best-of-three final.

Wehrlein had beaten France’s European Formula Three champion Esteban Ocon in the semis.

Coulthard, who retired two years ago after a stint in the DTM following his long F1 career, said his greater experience helped against Wehrlein, who was unaccustomed to manual gear-changing.

“He was looking for the semi-automatic shift,” Coulthard said after his “straight sets” victory.

The 20-year-old Brabham had lost his place in the Andretti Autosports team in the all-electric championship to French F1 “refugee” Jean-Eric Vergne after the previous round in Malaysia, but late last week he was called back to replace the team’s other Frenchman, Franck Montagny.

A protruding bolt meant to connect kerbing to the circuit at the Punta del Este beach resort scraped the wooden plank from the bottom of Brabham’s car and denied him a shot at a good qualifying spot.

The team had to prepare a replacement chassis and in the race he charged through the field until his front suspension broke four laps from the finish when he spun on to the kerbing.

“There was so much sand on the circuit that when you got off line it was almost like a wet track,” Brabham said.

“That’s what happened - the sand took away the grip and I ‘got’ the kerb and it damaged the suspension.

“I was very lucky in practice when the bolt scraped the ‘tub’. If it had have been any further out of the ground it would have pierced the ‘tub’ and got me.”

Brabham said the weekend had been “heart-breaking” but that he had been happy with his speed, the team and the promise they had shown together.

Swiss driver Sebastien Buemi won the race for the French e.dams team of F1 great Alain Prost.

The next round of the Formula E championship is in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on January 10.

However, it seems that the transaction is not complete, with a deadline approaching for Dennis to pay the other parties.

No mention was made of the McLaren ownership structure in last week’s announcement of world champions Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button as the drivers for the start of the team’s new era with Honda power units next season.

It had been speculated that Dennis, who seized back control of the team earlier this year by ousting Martin Whitmarsh, would buy half of  Mumtalakat’s 50 per cent and half of Ojjeh’s 25 per cent, giving him 62.5 per cent and perhaps costing him $US300 million.

Ecclestone has said that Dennis has agreed to buy all of Mumtalakat’s and Ojjeh’s holdings in the team, the second oldest and second most successful in F1 but which has gone winless for two seasons.

“Mumtalakat are nothing more to do with the race company. They have sold the shares to Ron. He has got to pay for them by a certain date,” Ecclestone said.

Contrary to Ecclestone’s suggestion that Dennis would own the whole company, which Forbes magazine has valued at $US800 million, a McLaren spokesman said that “when and if a transaction takes place it is not envisioned that the current shareholders will exit McLaren completely”.