Waters Tops Qualifying; Pole Battle Cars Locked In

Photo: Gruppe C Photography/SRO

Cameron Waters was quickest in qualifying for the Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour, which saw the top ten cars locked in for this afternoon’s Pirelli Pole Battle.

The Scott Taylor Motorsport driver reeled off a chart-topping 2:01.563 to edge out the Bronze class No. 44 Tigani Motorsport Mercedes-AMG of Scott Andrews by 0.107 seconds.

Broc Feeney, in his Ford Mustang GT3 debut, put the No. 64 HRT Ford Racing entry third quickest, followed by the 75 Express Mercedes-AMG of Lucas Stolz and the Tigani Mercedes-AMG of Jayden Ojeda.

The No. 55 Melbourne Performance Centre Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Christopher Haase was sixth quickest, ahead of Raffaele Marciello, who was the only BMW M4 GT3 EVO to make the top-ten in his No. 46 Team WRT entry.

The lone driver from Qualifying 1 to make the shootout was Lucas Auer, whose 2:01.972 lap time in the No. 77 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG put him eighth.

Matt Campbell, aboard the No. 911 Absolute Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R, was ninth, followed by Lamborghini factory driver Marco Mapelli, who put Wall Racing’s Huracan GT3 EVO2 into the top-ten and the pole-sitter in the Bronze class as a result.

The No. 89 Team KRC BMW of Max Hesse will start 11th as the first driver to miss out on the Pole Battle, followed by defending race winner Kelvin van der Linde in 12th.

Neither of the Bathurst-debuting Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs made the shootout, with the pair of JMR Johor Racing entries qualifying 25th and 26th, respectively.

Two-time Bathurst 12 Hour pole winner Maro Engel will also not feature in the Pole Battle after his No. 888 GruppeM Mercedes-AMG suffered a power-related issue in Q1.

Q2 was red-flagged when the No. 100 Grove Racing Mercedes-AMG of Kai Allen stopped on track after losing the car’s left-rear wheel at pit-exit.

It essentially reset the session, as only several drivers had set representative times prior to the stoppage.

The Pirelli Pole Battle gets underway at 4:15 p.m. local time (12:15 a.m. ET) with live coverage on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel.

RESULTS: Qualifying

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