Audi 1-2 in Friday Morning Practice at Bathurst

Photo: John Dagys

Audi led the way in the first combined practice session for Sunday’s Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour, with the pair of Melbourne Performance Centre Audi R8 LMS cars topping the time charts.

Christopher Hasse reeled off a best time of 2:04.087 in the No. 74 Audi to go quickest in the one-hour session, edging out teammate Rene Rast by 0.029 seconds.

The No. 31 Bentley Team M-Sport Bentley Continental GT3 of Maxime Soulet was third, with the No. 59 Tekno Autosports McLaren 650S GT3 and No. 1 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 completing the top-five.

Quickest of the GT3 Am competitors was the No. 32 Lago Racing Lamborghini Gallardo, which was sixth overall, while the No. 12 Mobil 1 New Zealand Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car paced Class B.

While there were no red flags, the session did not run without incident.

The No. 48 Interloy Lamborghini stopped on track early, followed by a spin by the Objective Racing McLaren and reports of smoke coming from the No. 77 Team NZ Porsche.

Maro Engel’s No. 63 Erebus Motorsport Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 slapped the wall with 20 minutes remaining, slightly damaging the gull-winged beast. It was brought back to the pits on a flat-bed.

Friday’s opening session, reserved for Bronze and Silver-rated drivers only, was topped by Warren Luff in the No. 11 Objective Racing McLaren, with no major incidents reported.

Practice 3 gets underway at 12:30 p.m. local time.

RESULTS: Practice 1
RESULTS: Practice 2

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John