Bathurst 12H Could Become GT3-Only Race By Next Year

Photo: Gruppe C Photography/SRO

The Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour could become a GT3-only race by as early as next year according to event director Shane Rudzis.

The development comes amid a proposal to bring SRO Motorsports Group’s Monochrome GT4 Australia series on the support bill next year, following the growing number of top-class GT entries for the Australian enduro.

Last weekend’s race featured 35 cars, all but four of them being GT3 entries in the largest car count since the 2020 edition that had 33 GT3-spec machines.

Only two GT4 cars were entered, along with a single KTM X-Bow GT2 and IRC GT car each in the Invitational class.

“Based on our garages at the track, that’s a limiting factor,” Rudzis told Sportscar365. “There’s 36 garages but we have to use one for our TV, so we probably have 34-35 garages. That’s the sweet spot, if it was to be an all-GT3.

“The way it’s going at the moment, I think we’ll end up with GT3s [only], whether that’s next year or the year after, I’m not sure.”

Rudzis explained that GT4s and other slower class machinery, such as a category for Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars, helped build the event in the mid-to-late 2010s when GT3 was still building up steam in Australia.

“From us, when we were fighting to get GT3 cars in the country, we wanted to have a good grid size [in the 12 Hour], so the GT4 and Invitational classes have helped us get there,” he said.

“That’s part of the DNA of the 12 Hour for many years. Everyone now knows what the MARC cars. They’re all competitive. Multi-class racing is the history of the Mount Panorama Circuit. It’s always there.

“But with GT3 and IGTC being so strong now with manufacturers committing to it, it means there’s more cars in the world from GT3 and there’s more coming to Australia.

“There’s guys that run these cars that want to tick the bucket list off. Mount Panorama is one of those race tracks.

“It’s five times a year that it’s available to race on. This is the most suitable time for most people to get a GT3 car and come out and actually race on this amazing circuit.”

Rudzis said he sees the shift to a GT3-only race as a “natural evolution” rather than a stated goal to eliminate the other classes.

“Again you look at this year with the number of GT3 cars, it’s huge,” he said. “We had two or three other GT3 cars that were coming that couldn’t quite get everything together.

“At one stage there, we thought we were going to have 35-36 GT3 cars coming, which is a good headache to have.

“Looking at that, and when you have the manufacturers coming into the GT space, such as Toyota with the GR product, when that comes on… we see from global motorsport they’re a powerhouse.

“You want to race the best tracks in the world, the IGTC, for Toyota, I’m assuming would be on their list anyways.

“SRO has been doing a good job of growing GT3 category in Australia for the championship. It’s a good thing and that foundation will help us with the grid size as we bring in internationals as well.”

Should the Bathurst 12 Hour become GT3 only, the Nürburgring 24 will become the only Intercontinental GT Challenge round with multi-class racing, as GT4s were also phased out of the Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS several years ago, and both the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa and Suzuka 1000km have been exclusively for GT3s as well.

Supercars Eying Expansion to Four-Day Event Format

Event promoter Supercars is also investigating expanding the Bathurst 12 Hour into a four-day event next year, which would add a paid test day on the Thursday of the weekend.

“I speak to a lot of the drivers and a lot of the Bronze drivers,” said Rudzis. “I think we’re at the level of the event now, from all aspects, that we should look at a test day on the Thursday.

“It would start a day earlier but it’s paid testing. I’m sure most teams will want to get their cars and drivers out there for some testing and hit the ground running on Friday.

“It’s just listening to our competitors and coming up with a solution that would be a win-win for both the event also for those guys.

“It could make it a a safer and even quicker race.”

Rudzis is hopeful of also retaining the current mid-February date for the event, which has been largely welcomed by competitors both in Australia and around the world.

“The feedback I’n getting from a lot of people is that this is the perfect date for the event,” he said. “We want to give some gap to Daytona. It struggled as back-to-back. Crews get here pretty wrecked.

“This has been very good for us, to have these extra two weeks as a company to put this event on, it’s a big show, it gave us some buffer coming out of the festive season.

“We’re waiting for news, at the moment, for Asian Le Mans. We’re trying to also balance things out like Chinese New Year, Ramadan.

“We want to maximize our entries of both race entries and we want the best drivers in the world to come here. They all want to come here. They’re pressuring me to make sure we don’t clash with anything.”

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