Triple Eight Confirms Bathurst Lineup with Two Former Winners

Triple Eight Race Engineering has confirmed its driver lineup for the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour with former event winners Jamie Whincup and Shane van Gisbergen joining Maximilian Goetz in the team’s Pro-class Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

Supercars champions Whincup and van Gisbergen are to return for a second crack at the Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli season-opener with the same team.

Whincup, who won the 2017 Bathurst 12 Hour in a Ferrari, shared the fourth-placed No. 888 Mercedes with 2016 winner van Gisbergen and Craig Lowndes last year.

However, Lowndes was recently confirmed with Porsche outfit Earl Bamber Motorsport, leaving a spot open for Mercedes factory driver Goetz to come in.

2014 GT World Challenge Europe Sprint champion Goetz contested the 2019 race in a GruppeM Racing Mercedes alongside Raffaele Marciello and Maximilian Buhk.

Triple Eight’s new trio will form one of two driver crews for the team in next month’s race.

In addition to the Pro-class entry, an all-Australian lineup of Nick Foster, Anton de Pasquale, Sam Shahin and Yasser Shahin will drive a Mercedes in the Pro-Am bracket.

Rest of Mercedes Works Lineup Finalized

All three of Mercedes-AMG’s factory crews for Bathurst have now been finalized with the manufacturer also announcing Craft-Bamboo and GruppeM Racing’s drivers.

Craft-Bamboo Racing will run a car for Maro Engel, Yelmer Buurman and Luca Stolz who finished third in last year’s Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup standings and took a podium in the Total 24 Hours of Spa.

GruppeM Racing’s Mercedes Evo will be driven by Marciello, Buhk and Felipe Fraga.

Only Fraga was previously announced for the full IGTC season but his co-drivers for Bathurst were not known until Mercedes confirmed its full roster on Wednesday.

Beyond the three Pro-class entries, two Silver Cup Mercedes lineups have also been finalized.

2018 IGTC Bronze class champion Kenny Habul is set to share driving duties in his SunEnergy1 Racing car with Austrians Dominik Baumann and Martin Konrad as well as Australia’s David Reynolds.

The No. 46 Black Falcon Mercedes, meanwhile, will feature Patrick Assenheimer, Sergej Afanasiev and a yet-to-be-announced third member.