Tander Audi Crashes Amid Incident-Filled Morning

Garth Tander crashed out of the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour at the top of the Mountain in the second hour of the Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli season-opener after an incident-filled morning.

Dries Vanthoor in the No. 2 Team Valvoline Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo was running ahead of Tander’s sister No. 22 Audi on the road in the early part of the race, however, the Belgian ran wide through McPhillamy Park.

Tander arrived into the corner at full speed and slid sideways trying to avoid his teammate before spearing across the front of Vanthoor’s car across the gravel and into the tire barrier on driver’s right.

Both Audis had been running inside the top 10, with Tander walking away from the incident.

Tander’s accident resulted in the third safety car of the race after a crash-marred morning.

Come Ledogar brought out the first safety car 1 hour and 30 minutes into the race after a small error resulted in big consequences for the No. 188 Garage 59 Aston Martin Vantage GT3.

Ledogar, who had been 18th at the time, took too much curb at The Esses, which unsettled the car and saw it bounce into the concrete walls, with Ledogar climbing from the car unassisted.

A second yellow came shortly before the end of the second hour when Jules Westwood slapped the wall at The Dipper in the No. 6 Wall Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3.

Ben Barnicoat in the No. 60 59Racing McLaren 720s GT3 relinquished the lead as the No. 60 McLaren stopped off-sequence under the yellow intervention to hand over to Alvaro Parente, rejoining 14th.

Maxi Goetz inherited the lead as a result in the No. 888 Triple Eight Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, however the fight for the cusp of the top 5 was ferocious.

Alexandre Imperatori in the No. 18 KCMG Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 went around the outside of Andrea Caldarelli’s No. 63 Orange 1 FFF Racing Team at Griffins Bend and made a replica move on the No. 77 Craft-Bamboo Black Falcon Mercedes of Luca Stolz a few laps later for fourth.

The third safety car for Tander’s crash scrambled the second round of pit stops, with Felipe Fraga emerging in the lead at the wheel of the No. 999 GruppeM Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.