Campbell: Porsche’s Wet Race Pace Key to Bathurst Win

Photo: Gruppe C Photography/SRO

Matt Campbell believes their performance in the weather-impacted hours of the Repco Bathurst 12 Hour was key to victory in the Australian international enduro.

Campbell teamed with Laurens Vanthoor and Bathurst rookie Ayhancan Guven to give Manthey EMA overall honors in the Intercontinental GT Challenge season opener, breaking SunEnergy1 Racing’s two-year win streak in the race.

While admitting to having had a competitive Porsche 911 GT3 R in both dry and wet conditions, the Australian pointed out the second half of the race to where he felt they excelled the most.

Both Campbell and Guven bridged out to considerable leads during the rain-soaked portions.

“The team did a fantastic job in the pit stop when the rain started to come down,” Campbell said. “That really turned our race back around after a little bit of a down moment in the hour before.

“When it first started to come down I think I was the guinea pig on the safety car restart and everything like that.

“I think that was really beneficial to us because we had clean air, we didn’t have spray and we were able to get into [some] momentum and get a feel for the track, where everyone else behind had a lot of spray and probably couldn’t see the standing water I could.

“This was a really important aspect of our race was the performance in the wet condition and being out front, leading and being able to mange traffic and the slower cars a little bit better and having clean air, that was really, really important.”

Guven praised the work done in pit lane by the German-Australian squad, which put the Turkish driver out into the lead during the second rain phase.

“I think the team made the fastest pit stop of the race in going from slicks to rain and we took the lead back,” he said. “From that moment it was similar to the first part of the race.

“Just in the rain it was a little bit tricky for me because I needed to go out and I didn’t know the track [conditions]. The first five, ten laps I knew I was losing time compared to others.

“That was quite stressful until I tried to understand the track. But once I understood the track and the rain line, it started to get better.

“I can’t be more happy for my first race at Bathurst.”

When asked by Sportscar365 about the final restart with 30 minutes to go, which erased Campbell’s ten-plus second lead, he admitted that he wasn’t as concerned considering the car’s strength on restarts.

“I must say… the restarts for us has probably been our strong point today in the race, which was quite odd because all throughout qualifying yesterday I really struggled to turn on the rear tires,” Campbell said.

“Today, the car really came alive on the restarts. It was a nice surprise.

“After the first lap where I pulled that small gap, I knew it could have been possible. Then it was just about making no mistakes but keep pushing because obviously there was a bit of risk management going on.

“There was still a lot of water in parts in little patches, so I was just making sure that I didn’t make any mistakes and try to bring it home safely.”

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