Manthey EMA Porsche Wins Rain-Soaked Bathurst 12H

Photo: Gruppe C Photography/SRO

Matt Campbell took Manthey EMA to victory in a rain-soaked Repco Bathurst 12 Hour, edging out Jules Gounon to give Porsche its second victory in Australia’s international enduro.

In a reversal to last year’s battle, Campbell pedaled his No. 912 Porsche 911 GT3 R to a 2.633-second win over the three-time and defending race winner aboard the No. 75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

It came after a late-race safety car period due to the No. 701 Vortex of Julien Boillot, which got stuck on the curbs that led to a 30-minute shootout to the finish.

The Australian had a ten-plus second lead over Gounon prior to the neutralization and built up a narrow gap on the restart over the Andorran driver, who initially came under pressure from the No. 13 Phantom Global Racing Porsche of Jaxon Evans.

Campbell, who scored his second Bathurst 12 Hour overall victory, shared the winning Type-992 Porsche with Ayhancan Guven and Laurens Vanthoor in the Intercontinental GT Challenge season opener.

It came just three weeks after Campbell’s overall win in the Rolex 24 at Daytona for Porsche Penske Motorsport. Manthey EMA, meanwhile, celebrated its first Bathurst 12 Hour victory.

The No. 912 Porsche, which controlled the race in both dry and wet conditions, overcame a drive-through penalty for meeting the minimum 85-second pit stop time in the seventh hour that led to two trips through pit lane due to a misunderstanding of the rules by the German-Australian squad.

The penalty came shortly before the first bout of rain showers that drenched the 3.861-mile Mount Panorama Circuit and forced teams to wet-weather tires for the first of two stanzas.

A dramatic late-race three-way battle for third went the way of the No. 22 Melbourne Performance Centre Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Christopher Hasse, who muscled his way around Evans with less than six minutes to go.

It demoted the No. 13 Phantom Global Porsche to fourth, with the No. 46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 of Maxime Martin completing the top-five in a car he shared with Valentino Rossi and Raffaele Marciello, who was making his BMW debut.

Martin’s car was the first of the leading GT3 entries to switch to slick tires with just over an hour to go while under green flag conditions.

It was followed by the top three runners on consecutive laps prior to the 11th and final safety car period in the incident-filled race.

Gounon and co-drivers Luca Stolz and Kenny Habul saw their Bathurst win streak end with the runner-up result, while Haase shared the third-place finishing MPC Audi with Kelvin van der Linde and Bronze-rated driver Liam Talbot.

Four different GT3 brands finished in the top five.

The Mercedes-AMGs from Triple Eight Race Engineering, Scott Taylor Motorsport and GruppeM Racing, meanwhile, finished sixth through eighth, meanwhile.

Double Victory for Manthey EMA With Pro-Am Honors

Manthey EMA celebrated a double victory on Sunday with its Type-991.2 Porsche of Alessio Picariello, Harry King and Yasser Shahin bouncing back from a spin into the gravel to win the GT3 Pro-Am class.

It came after a late-race drive-through penalty for the No. 27 Heart of Racing by SPS Mercedes-AMG of Ross Gunn, who was found to have been weaving his car on the restart.

Gunn charged back to a second place class finish in the car he shared with Alex Riberas and Ian James.

GT3 Silver class honors went to the No. 93 Wall Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, while the No. 19 Team Nineteen Mercedes-AMG GT4 picked up the class win in GT4, featuring Mercedes-AMG factory driver Adam Christodoulou.

GruppeM’s race was marred by multiple drive-through penalties, including one for adjusting its rear wing while refueling as well as a breach of Balance of Performance protocol by exceeding the 32-lap maximum stint length.

The No. 77 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG also fell foul of the stint length rule before retiring its car after Dani Juncadella brushed the wall and damaged the car’s suspension with just over two hours to go.

MPC’s No. 2 Audi also failed to finish with a toe-link issue while the pole-sitting No. 32 WRT BMW of Charles Weerts was eliminated in a dramatic accident at The Cutting in the fifth hour.

The majority of the stoppages were for GT4 or Invitational class entries that found trouble over the course of the around-the-clock enduro.

The No. 20 T2 Racing IRC GT ended up being classified with the win in the Invitational class despite multiple incidents.

RESULTS: Repco Bathurst 12 Hour

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