Another year and another amazing 12 hour race at Australian motorsport heaven, Bathurst’s Mount Panorama.
The event gets bigger and better every year, so no time should go to waste. It is highly recommended to spend the 4 days in Bathurst.
As per last year we camped, though this time around it was up on the mountain. We met a few people as we needed a few tools here and there. Everyone was just too happy to help. If you’re going to have a car failure there’s no better place than around car enthusiasts.
Saturday brought perfect weather for GT3 practice sessions and the supporting race classes. After the support classes were done and the track closed, we made our way to pit lane to capture box practice and race prep. The beauty about being here on a Saturday is being arms-length from world-class GT3 teams. Watching as they go about practicing fuelling, driver swap and tyre changes. All under the very astute eye of team principals and enthusiastic race fans.
MISHUMOTORS SLS AMG during one of the Saturday practice sessions flaunting that Martini Racing livery.
Walking behind pit lane the atmosphere was so chilled. The track was closed so all teams were in the garage doing their finishing touches while some spectators took the opportunity traditionally walk the track. Here’s team NISMO giving the GT-R a well deserved wipe down before the big day.
The Jamec Pem team were prepping tyres for their two Audi R8 LMSs
To my surprise, spectators were allowed to walk through the garages and onto pit lane. The Bentley teams were still hard at work practicing their driver changes.
We camped on top of the mountain this year so we took the opportunity to see how the race start looks from this perspective. Pretty bloody good!
Team NISMO on top of the world before hurtling down Mount Panorama.
Squad goals
No 59, Tekno Autosports started on pole position from a qualifying time of 2:01.2.
V10 beauty
Tekno Autosports No 60 working hard under pressure. A little bit of fire never hurt anybody.
In the last 10 minutes all eyes were watching the gap between the No 59 McLaren and Team Nismo get smaller and smaller. After 12 hours of racing Shane van Gisbergen took the win by 1.276 seconds having completed 297 laps. It was a great effort by Tekno Autosports. Congratulations to Shane van Gisbergen, Alvaro Parente and Jonathon Webb.
See you next year Bathurst.
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