Van der Linde Leads Opening Hour of Bathurst 12H

Photo: Gruppe C Photography/SRO

Sheldon van der Linde led the opening hour of the Repco Bathurst 12 Hour following a safety car start to the Intercontinental GT Challenge season opener.

The South African, in the pole-sitting No. 32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3, held a 1.2-second lead over the No. 888 Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Mikael Grenier, with Maro Engel third in the No. 130 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG.

While the race started at 5:45 a.m. local time behind the safety car as usual, an extra lap was ordered by race control for unknown reasons prior to a single-file restart with eight minutes into the race.

Van der Linde stretched out into a comfortable advantage over the pair of Mercedes-AMGs, with Laurens Vanthoor, having started the No. 912 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R, in fourth through the opening laps.

Luca Stolz, in the two-time and defending race-winning No. 75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG, ran fifth at the one-hour mark, ahead of Ricardo Feller’s No. 2 Melbourne Performance Centre Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II.

The No. 911 Manthey EMA Porsche of Harry King was out front of the Pro-Am class in ninth overall, ahead of the No. 88 Triple Eight Mercedes-AMG driven by Jamie Whincup.

Twenty-nine of the 30 entries took the start, with the No. 50 KTM Vantage Racing KTM XBow GT2 having been withdrawn due to accident damage from Saturday.

The No. 56 Nineteen Corp Ginetta G55 GT4 was the first car to hit trouble in the race, with Owen Hizzey bringing the car into the pits on fire due to driveshaft failure.

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