Vanthoor Paces Practice 3 in Manthey EMA Porsche

Photo: Gruppe C Photography/SRO

Laurens Vanthoor took the No. 912 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R to the top of the time sheets in the third Free Practice session of the day for the Repco Bathurst 12 Hour.

Vanthoor reeled off a best time of 2:03.689 in the Type-992 Porsche to edge out the No. 888 Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Mikael Grenier by 0.717 seconds.

The Belgian’s time, however, was nine-tenths slower than FP1 pace-setter Kelvin van der Linde in the No. 22 Melbourne Performance Centre Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, which was quickest on Friday.

Joel Eriksson made it two Porsches in the top-three, placing the No. 13 Phantom Global Racing entry third quickest, ahead of the No. 46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 of Valentino Rossi in fourth.

The No. 130 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG completed the top-five, while the No. 88 Triple Eight Mercedes-AMG was sixth, ahead of the No. 22 MPC Audi, No. 911 Manthey EMA Porsche, No. 2 MPC Audi and No. 93 Wall Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, which completed the overall top-ten.

Heart of Racing by SPS, meanwhile, continued to lead the way in the Pro-Am class.

As was the case in the first two sessions, there were again no major incidents or red flags.

A 40-minute Bronze driver session will wrap up Friday’s activities at 4:10 p.m. local time (12:10 a.m. ET).

RESULTS: Free Practice 3

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