Weerts Puts BMW on Top in First Bathurst Practice

Team WRT BMW driver Charles Weerts set the fastest time in the opening practice session for this weekend’s Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour on Friday morning.

On a cool overcast morning at Mount Panorama, Weerts was the only driver to clear the 2:04 barrier as he set a quickest time of 2:03.868 aboard the retro liveried No. 32 BMW M4 GT3 EVO with around ten minutes left in the 40-minute session.

The Belgian driver deposed local hero Cam Waters from the top of the sheets, with the No. 222 Scott Taylor Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo ending up second-fastest with a lap time 0.287 seconds slower than Weerts.

Third-fastest was the Pro-Am class-entered No. 268 BRM Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Alex Peroni, less than a tenth of a second further behind.

Making a late jump up the order after the checkered flag flew, Matt Campbell put the best of the Porsche 911 GT3 Rs, the No. 911 Absolute Racing entry, fourth ahead of the No. 100 Grove Racing Mercedes-AMG of Kai Allen.

Lee Holdsworth was sixth aboard the No. 9 Hallmarc/MPC Audi, and best of the Bronze Cup entries, ahead of Christopher Haase in the sister No. 55 Jamec Racing/MPC car.

Rounding off the top ten were Jules Gounon in the 75 Express Mercedes-AMG, Ricardo Feller in the No. 61 EBM Porsche and the sole Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 in the field, the Bronze class-entered Wall Racing machine of Tony D’Alberto.

Bathurst 12H GT3 newcomers Ford and Chevrolet both had low-key starts to the weekend, as the sole HRT Mustang GT3 was 18th-fastest, just over two seconds off the pace, and the better of the two JMR Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs was 23rd.

The 40-minute session ran largely without incident, although the No. 888 GruppeM Mercedes-AMG of Maxime Martin was seen touring back to the pits early on.

That car returned to the session but was only 26th-fastest of the 30 GT3 cars that ran, with the No. 15 Volante Rosso Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3 Evo not taking part.

Practice continues with the second session of the weekend, reserved for FIA Bronze-rated drivers, at 11:00 a.m. local time (Thursday 7 p.m. ET).

RESULTS: Practice 1