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Intercontinental GT Challenge

Winkelhock Tops Saturday Morning; Craft-Bamboo Setback

No. 777 Audi leads final practice at Bathurst as three cars including No. 91 Merc hit trouble…

Photo: Audi Sport

Audi Sport Team Valvoline driver Markus Winkelhock set the quickest lap time on the final morning of practice for the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour, while Mercedes-AMG squad Craft-Bamboo Racing missed both sessions due to an engine change.

A pair of 60-minute practices were held in advance of qualifying on Saturday afternoon, with the No. 777 and No. 74 Melbourne Performance Centre Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo IIs respectively leading the way courtesy of Winkelhock and Kelvin van der Linde.

Winkelhock topped Practice 5 with a 2:03.134 marker, representing the fastest lap of the weekend so far, while van der Linde paced Practice 6 on a 2:03.257.

Craft-Bamboo, meanwhile, sat out the full two hours of running as its No. 91 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo underwent an engine change at a workshop in nearby Bathurst town.

Director Darryl O’Young told Sportscar365 that the team’s engineers “detected irregularities in the data” during and in the analysis that followed Friday night practice.

The Hong Kong-based team, which is the only overseas entrant, is running one of the factory-assisted Mercedes-AMGs featuring Maro Engel and Daniel Juncadella.

It is unclear if Craft-Bamboo will make qualifying but the team initated the engine change this morning to ensure it can be ready for the race start at 5:15 a.m. on Sunday.

Melbourne Performance Centre’s No. 47 Supabarn Audi also missed both Saturday morning practice sessions as the team worked to prepare a new car to replace one that was damaged in a crash on Friday afternoon.

The substitute Audi arrived in the paddock at 6 a.m. after an overnight drive of almost 500 miles, before being converted from Evo specification to the latest Evo II version.

Additionally, the No. 17 Team BRM Audi missed the sixth and final practice session after Mark Rosser hit the wall at the Dipper in the closing stages of Practice 5.

It marked the second red flag of Practice 5 after the No. 52 MARC Cars Mustang had an incident in the mountain section before carrying on back to the pits.

Audis continued to dominate the timing sheets at Mount Panorama, as R8 models led all of the six practice sessions leading up to qualifying.

Winkelhock led Practice 5 ahead of Grove Racing’s driver Ben Barker, who posted a time of 2:03.654 in the event’s only Porsche 911 GT3 R.

Ricardo Feller stepped into the No. 777 Audi after Winkelhock and duly became the second-fastest driver of the session after edging quicker than Barker’s effort.

In the sixth practice run, van der Linde reached the head of the leaderboard shortly after the 20-minute mark.

The South African remained at the top of the pile for the remaining 40 minutes, but there were a handful of improvements behind.

Jules Gounon first shot to second with a 2:03.555 in the SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG but was eclipsed by Bathurst 1000 winner Chaz Mostert, who reeled off a 2:03.487 aboard the No. 65 Coinspot-liveried MPC Audi to go two-tenths shy of van der Linde.

Three red flags occurred in the early stages of Practice 6, the first caused by a car stopping at pit exit and the second by the No. 52 MARC Mustang spinning at The Cutting.

A final red came out right at the end, due to an incident for Porsche driver Stephen Grove at Reid Park.

The first of two 25-minute qualifying sessions that will combine to determine this afternoon’s Top 10 Shootout lineup is due to start at 1:20 p.m. AEST (11:20 a.m. ET).

RESULTS: Practice 5 / Practice 6

Daniel Lloyd is a UK-based reporter for Sportscar365, covering the FIA World Endurance Championship, Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, among other series.

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