Bathurst Post-Race Notebook

Photo: Mercedes-AMG

***The Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour-winning No. 888 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Maro Engel, Maxime Martin and Mikael Grenier started the Intercontinental GT Challenge season opener from 29th in the 34-car field, marking the furthest back a car gone on to win in race history.

***The previous lowest-qualifying position for an overall race-winning team was the No. 7 M-Sport Bentley Continental GT3 of Jules Gounon, Jordan Pepper and Maxime Martin, which started the 2020 edition in 11th overall.

***GruppeM’s Mercedes-AMG lost out on a chance of the Pirelli Pole Battle on Saturday due to a defective fuel injector, which was changed prior to the race start. The Hong Kong-flagged team’s entry, also fought back from a double wheel gun failure in the seventh hour.

***It marked the first Bathurst 12 Hour wins for all three drivers, as well as the Kenny Chen-owned GruppeM team, which last scored a win in IGTC competition at the 2023 Gulf 12 Hours, which was also Mercedes-AMG’s last overall triumph in SRO Motorsports Group’s globe-trotting GT3 series.

***Martin, who scored his first win as a Mercedes-AMG factory driver, said:  “In the end, the last restart we knew it was going to be tough. It was like a sprint to the end. I was a bit lucky to be in the right place at the right moment. I could take the lead and I pushed as much as I could. The Porsche behind was very fast and still pushing me to the end so it was a tough final stint.”

***Engel was due to finish the race but a 55-minute red flag period for a massive accident at Forrest’s Elbow involving the then race-leading No. 77 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG of Ralf Aron and Johannes Zelger’s spun Tsunami RT Porsche would have put the German driver over the two-hour and 30-minute maximum continuous drive time.

***The serious accident saw Aron crawl out of his burning Mercedes-AMG and limp across a still-live track before getting himself over the pit wall and collapsing on the grass before any medical crews arrived. The Estonian driver was transported to a hospital in the city of Orange in stable condition, accompanied by his co-driver Lucas Auer, and later revealed that he suffered two fractures to his back.

***Engel was the third car on the scene of Zelger’s stationary Porsche, behind Aron and the 75 Express Mercedes-AMG of Luca Stolz. “It was totally unexpected,” said Engel. “The yellow flag was very late with no real warning. I just tried to avoid the car. To be honest with you, I didn’t think there was a gap and a gap just appeared in time as I arrived and I was able to go through the two cars without [hitting] either of them. It was definitely one of the closest situations that I’ve experienced in my career.”

***It marked the first red flag in race history since the 2018 edition, which was stopped with 15 minutes to go and abandoned three minutes later following a three-car accident that gave the win to the Team WRT’s Audi R8 LMS of Dries Vanthoor, Robin Frijns and Stuart Leonard.

***Martin took the win by just 1.037 seconds over the No. 86 High Class Racing Porsche of Dorian Boccolacci in what marked the fourth-closest finish in race history. It was also the first time a Bronze class entry finished on the overall podium. Boccolacci’s Porsche started from 30th on the grid.

***A total of 13 cars finished on the lead lap, marking another record, while at 262 laps, it was the shortest Bathurst 12 Hour since the caution-plagued 2015 edition.

***Kenny Habul’s 75 Express effort failed to finish on the overall podium for the first time since the 2020 race after Jules Gounon and the then-leading No. 32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Kelvin van der Linde made contact in Turn 1 on the final restart with 39 minutes to go in a incident that did not result in any penalties from race control.

***Gounon, Habul and Luca Stolz, who were seeking their third overall win in the last five years as a driving trio, finished seventh after damage sustained to the nose of the SunEnergy1-sponsored Mercedes-AMG affected Gounon’s speed in the closing stint.

***Habul, meanwhile, salvaged a second place finish in the IGTC Independent Cup, with High Class’ Kerong Li taking the win with his, Boccolacci and Anders Fjordbach’s runner-up overall result.

***BMW outfit Team KRC celebrated a top-five finish on its Bathurst debut with Ruan Cunfan, Maxime Oosten and Max Hesse, who also finished second in Bronze, behind the class-winning High Class effort.

***Hesse told Sportscar365: “It’s pretty crazy that we finished top five without winning the class to be honest! But [High Class] did a great job, they really nailed the drive times with the Bronze and Silver drivers. We had a messy race to be honest; ‘Tony’ [Ruan] made a mistake in his second stint and we had some damage, so we lost some performance for two stints until we changed the nose under yellow. But the team did a great job and we had some luck to get back, because we were three or four laps down at one point.”

***Optimum Motorsport’s McLaren 720S GT3 Evo was running strongly in podium contention until the final hour of the race, when the car shared by Ben Barnicoat, Garnet Patterson and Marvin Kirchhoefer was taken to the garage as it began to suffer a loss of engine power. Barnicoat told Sportscar365: “The issue continued to worsen so we called it a day. It’s a real shame. We didn’t have the pace of the others, but it was a mega effort from everyone.”

***Tigani Motorsport’s Pro class No. 6 Mercedes-AMG was another car that lost ground early in the race due to kangaroo-related damage, which technical director Matt Harvey said impacted the team’s later decision to go off-strategy once it had got back on to the lead lap. The car was ultimately not classified as Jayden Ojeda crashed out at Griffin’s Bend after contact with Chaz Mostert’s Scott Taylor Motorsport Mercedes-AMG.

***Harvey told Sportscar365: “Early in the race, the No. 32 [WRT BMW] swerved to miss a kangaroo and skedaddled it into our front grill and bumper and bonnet. We had a lot of issues related to that, we needed two trips to the garage to resolve that. Once we were back on the lead lap, we missed a bit of straight line performance, probably damage-related, so we decided to go off-strategy. The car behind us had more fuel, so we had to stay in front, but unfortunately [Mostert] loosened us up in Turn 2 and we were in the wall.”

***Recalling the collision with Mostert, Ojeda told Sportscar365: “We were racing hard to lead the off-strategy group of cars that could have potentially made it home without the additional fuel stop. We were going at it for a few laps at that intensity and ultimately I got a good push up Mountain Straight, ended up on the marbles and touched the wall, and unfortunately I caught the No. 222 [STM Mercedes-AMG] on the way through.”

***For his part, Mostert described the incident with Ojeda as a “shame” adding: “I hate that we’ve brought home a damaged car. Scott [Taylor, team owner], Ash [Seward] and the team did not deserve that, but I know that we did everything to win today. I really enjoyed the weekend and can’t thank Scott for the opportunity to be a part of his team.”

***Taylor added: “We’re gutted, because we had a quick car. We put it on pole on Saturday, we won a pretty special trophy for doing that, and after we got through those first three hours of the race in a good spot, we knew that we were a contender. But it just wasn’t to be for us, and when we get to the end of it all, you realize how hard it is to win and how special it is.”

***Porsche squad EBM recovered from last on the grid to eighth after being thrown out of qualifying for a rear wing infringement, but Ricardo Feller had been in top-five contention until he was pushed wide exiting Turn 1 late on by fellow Porsche driver Bastian Buus.

***Feller told Sportscar365: “In the end it was a sprint race after the red flag, but I was not expecting that everyone could just push each other off and nobody gets a penalty. Maybe I was a bit too fair, but next year I can give it back! There are no bad feelings, but it was just not the style of racing I was expecting in a race like this.”

***Chris Mies’ dramatic end to the race after striking a kangaroo on the third lap wasn’t the only incident involving Australia’s iconic animal, with the No. 32 BMW and No. 6 Tigani Mercedes-AMG also having clipped another kangaroo in the opening hour and Valentino Rossi having spotted two additional kangaroos. “It was in front of me, yes,” said Rossi. “Fortunately he’s alive.”

***Asked if something should be done of the wildlife situation, Rossi said: “Every year we speak about the kangaroos a lot. This is a special place. It’s a special track. They use this track just five times in one year. This is the rule of the game if we come at Mount Panorama… This is the danger you have for the racing [here].”

***Mies, meanwhile, has vowed to return to the Bathurst 12 Hour. He said: “I still love Australia; I’ll still come back. My son asked me to bring him a little kangaroo toy, I will not do that. I will buy him a koala or a wombat or whatever, but no kangaroos.”

***The No. 27 Heart of Racing by SPS Mercedes-AMG, which headed into the event as defending Bronze class winners, suffered early race misfortune when Ian James was hit from behind in the second hour, resulting in left-rear suspension damage that cost the car seven laps.

***Rubens Barrichello, who attended his first Bathurst 12 Hour in support of his son, Eduardo’s race debut in the Heart of Racing entry, revealed ambitions on the race broadcast of returning to Mount Panorama as a driver alongside ‘Dudu’ and his other son, FIA Formula 3 racer Fernando in what could mark an all-Barrichello driven car in the race.

***The Quinn family car, featuring Tony Quinn, his sons Klark and Kent and grandson, Ryder, finished the race 18th overall in their Melbourne Performance Centre-run Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II. It marked what’s widely believed to have been the first-ever three-generation co-driven race car.

***The three-day weekend attendance was reported at 55,231 spectators, marking a new event record from 2023 when there were 53,446 spectators over the course of the event. Last year’s crowd was reported at 51,372 people.

***With the opening round now in the books, IGTC competitors will now shift their attention to the buildup for the Nürburgring 24, which is set for May 16-17, but with several NLS rounds scheduled in the coming months in the build-up to the German endurance classic.

Jamie Klein contributed to this report

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