Bathurst Thursday Notebook

Photo: Gruppe C Photography/SRO

***All 35 cars competing in this weekend’s Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour took part in the annual track-to-town parade on a slightly rainy Thursday morning, which an autograph session. A separate group photo, featuring one car from each manufacturer taking part in the race, was organized on the pit straight (pictured above).

***Australia’s international enduro, which boasts the largest grid of GT3 machinery since 2020, kicks off the 11th season of SRO Motorsports Group’s Intercontinental GT Challenge.

***Tsunami RT’s Porsche 911 GT3 R has been reduced to a three-driver lineup, following the late news that Daniel Gaunt will not participate this weekend. It leaves Alex Fontana, Johannes Zelger and Fabio Babini to share driving duties of the Bronze Cup class entry.

***A number of drivers and teams have arrived in Australia following a busy stretch of racing, including Team WRT and JMR Johor Racing, which took part in the last four rounds of the 2025-26 Asian Le Mans Series over the past two weeks in the United Arab Emirates.

***Additionally, the Vincent Vosse-led WRT squad, which enters Bathurst as defending race winners, took part in last month’s Rolex 24 at Daytona in the first race running BMW’s factory IMSA GTP effort, and prior to that, the Michelin 6H Abu Dhabi and 24H Dubai, the latter which it was victorious in a BMW M4 GT3 EVO that featured Kelvin van der Linde and Jordan Pepper, who are both competing this weekend.

***Laurin Heinrich hasn’t had an off-weekend since his breakthrough overall victory in the Rolex 24 at Daytona with Porsche Penske Motorsport, with the newly minted Porsche factory driver having also contested the Asian LMS races in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, in addition to fellow Porsche pilot Klaus Bachler, BMW’s Augusto Farfus, Ferrari ace Davide Rigon and Mercedes-AMG factory drivers Lucas Auer and Fabian Schiller.

***Princes Jefri and Abu Bakar Ibrahim, along with their JMR co-drivers Alexander Sims, Ben Green and Jordan Love, are also coming off the Asian LMS campaign, which was cut short by two races for one of its Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R entries following a crash in testing last Friday at Yas Marina Circuit. It came after another one of the team’s Corvettes was a write-off earlier in the season at Sepang International Circuit.

***Unrelated to its most recent accident last week, JMR is debuting a brand-new Corvette chassis for its Pro-Am class No. 99 entry this weekend, which was air freighted from the U.S. earlier this month in a logistical exercise orchestrated by IGTC’s partner JAS Worldwide Logistics.

***The 75 Express Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, is a new chassis to Bathurst, having only one previous race under its belt in last year’s Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS according to team owner/driver Kenny Habul, who has elected to retire “Princess” – the 2023 overall-winning car that was craned out of Habul’s sixth floor museum in Connecticut to contest the 2024 race and was also used last year to a third consecutive overall podium finish.

***Habul’s Bathurst 2022-winning car – named “Prince” – retired after contesting only a single race. It’s understood to have been Mercedes-AMG’s 200th GT3 race car built.

***The U.S.-based Australian and his Munich-based team is coming off a runner-up class finish in last month’s Rolex 24 at Daytona in the highly competitive GTD Pro class, which marked Habul’s best Daytona result since 2021. Unlike Daytona when it reverted to its original blue metallic livery in a hope of improved fortunes, 75 Express’ Mercedes-AMG this weekend is back in its now-traditional orange color that’s taken the team to two wins and four consecutive podiums at Mount Panorama.

***Habul, the defending IGTC Independent Cup winner, is one of a record of six entrants in the category this weekend, joining Ralf Bohn, Jonathan Hui, Prince Jefri Ibrahim, Kerong Li and Johannes Zelger, with Adrian D’Silva set to join later this season.

***As was the case in recent years, the FIA Bronze-rated drivers are permitted one drop score over the five-round globe-trotting GT3 campaign, which again features the Nürburgring 24, CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa, Suzuka 1000km and Indy 8 Hour in addition to the Bathurst 12 Hour.

***Sportscar365 understands that Habul will again skip the 24 Hours of Spa, the site of his back-breaking crash in 2023, which he has vowed not to return to until sufficient barriers are constructed at the site of his accident, which resulted in barrier damage.

***Instead, Habul is planning to make his debut in the Nürburgring 24 in order to stay in the IGTC Independent Cup title race, with plans being put into place for his participation in several NLS races in order to gain his ‘A Permit’ for the German endurance classic on May 16-17.

***Habul told Sportscar365: “I think the section across the top of Bathurst has got to be the most difficult in the world. But I want to do it (Nürburgring 24). They like it. To me, you’re not a driver unless you do it. I haven’t been there so I’ve got to do the license stuff in March. We’re still finalizing the drivers and what class we go in. It’s all a little bit different there as they have their own rules. It’s coming along and we’re going to do it.”

***Several teams have spare chassis on-site this weekend, including HRT Ford Racing, which is entering a solo Ford Mustang GT3 for former race winners Chris Mies, Dennis Olsen and Australian Supercars star Broc Feeney, as well as Bathurst debutants Tsunami RT. Porsche Motorsport Asia Pacific also has a spare Porsche that could be put into use for any of its customer teams.

***Chaz Mostert replaces Craig Lowndes in the lineup of the Scott Taylor Motorsport Mercedes-AMG this year, moving across from Arise Racing GT. It means he is finally set to share a car at Bathurst with fellow Australian Supercars racer Cam Waters for the first time, the pair having been ruled out of the Bathurst 1000 in 2015 by a crash for Mostert.

***Mostert told Sportscar365: “Cam was my teammate in 2015 when I had my horrific Bathurst crash. And unfortunately, we never got to race Bathurst together. That was probably the coolest part about this. It was a bit of a second coming for us to share a car at Bathurst. We’re quite good mates off the track, so, I kind of jumped at that opportunity to try and right a wrong that I did to him ten years ago.”

***Mostert sat out the 2025 GT World Challenge Australia powered by AWS season after winning the title in 2024 together with Arise GT co-driver Liam Talbot, preferring to focus on his Monochrome GT4 Australia team Method Motorsport, and indicated he will continue to do so this year.

***He said: “Our team is growing this year, we are going from running four cars to six, so I want to make sure we do the right thing by our customers going forward. I have just as much enjoyment on that side of the fence, especially in the GT world.”

***Lowndes, a seven-time Bathurst 1000 winner who has also won the 12 Hour twice in 2014 and 2017, aboard Maranello Motorsport-prepared Ferraris, is absent from the grid for the first time since 2016. Lowndes has contested all but two of the races from the GT3 era, which began in 2011.

***It’s understood that Lowndes, a GM ambassador, enquired for a drive in one of JMR’s Corvettes, although the Malaysian team opted for its regular core lineup plus its Pro entry featuring the GM factory drivers lineup of Sims, Earl Bamber and Nicky Catsburg.

***The STM Mercedes-AMG is being run by renowned team owner, manager and engineer Barry Ryan this weekend. Ryan led Erebus Motorsport’s Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 to victory in 2013 and now serves as the CEO of the Supercars squad.

***Rubens Barrichello has made the trip to Bathurst to support his son Eduardo “Dudu” Barrichello in his race debut at Mount Panorama in Heart of Racing by SPS’ Mercedes-AMG alongside Roman De Angelis and team principal Ian James.

***Longtime Bathurst 12 Hour commentator Richard Craill was named on Thursday as part of the new-look Repco Supercars broadcast team, which will see Craill share play-by-play duties with Chad Neylon and Matt Naulty over the course of the season, which kicks off next weekend at Sydney Motorsport Park. It marks a departure from the longtime voice of Supercars, Neil Crompton, who reportedly declined a reduced offer.

***Track action for the Bathurst 12 Hour kicks off on Friday with four 40-minute practice sessions, two of them for Bronze-rated drivers only. An all-skate opening practice is set for 8:45 a.m. local (Thursday, 4:45 p.m. ET) with all practice sessions to be streamed on the on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel.

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