WRT wins thrilling Bathurst 12 Hour


It’s a well known fact that the Team WRT is the jewel of Audi Sport in the GT3 scene, with multiple programs and multiple cars around Europe and the world, always being a winning team, and they proved this by winning a shortened Bathurst 12 Hour that was full of attrition as competitors had to deal with themselves and the punishing Australian track. Survival was the word of order and Robin Frijns, Dries Vanthoor and Stuart Leonard delivered it with an impressive show.

It took only ten minutes of racing to have the first yellow flag due to accident, lifted after 10 minutes, which benefited the No. 43 Schnitzer BMW as it opened their lead with the other competitors still trying to find pace to counter them. The multiple yellow flag periods during the first hours held the trend, though the crashes eliminated some high profile entries during this time.

The commanding performance of the No. 43 Schnitzer BMW in the early hours was soon obscured by the good pace of the No. 11 Objective McLaren, while a pack led by the No. 100 SRM BMW was just looking for a mistake from the leaders to join the fight, and things only got worse for the No. 43 due to a drive-through penalty because of an infringement in the restart procedure.

Even with the penalty the No. 43 stayed in the fight, though always at the chasing end of the scene, being in pursuit of the No. 12 Competition Porsche until it eventually got down to 11th.

Around the halfway mark the Audis started gaining control of the race, with the No. 22 abd the No. 74 from Jamec Pem sharing the lead while being on different strategies, though the number of Safety Car periods would also help to extend the runs. Around that time there were some scary moments for the two new MARC II that MARC Cars brought to the race, with the No. 67 going off track and gaining some air time that destroyed the rear end of the car, and the No. 54 catching fire after the Conrod straight. Another car with a troubled debut race was the No. 66 Daytona Sportscars Viper CC, which stopped on track down the mountain.

The Jamec Pem domination was resumed once the pit cycle of the 7th hour was done, but then Kelvin van der Linde in the No. 22 Audi was trying to lap an I class MARC Mazda when faced the walls down the mountain, limping back to the pits and the going to the garage for repairs.

Eventually the No. 55 Strakka Mercedes which was leading the A Pro-Am class joined the overall fight with the No. 74 Jamec Pem Audi, while a bit at the back some rough contact while racing for 3rd overall led to the No. 43 Schnitzer BMW and the No. 17 M-SPORT Bentley being badly damaged while hitting a B class car, with the No. 991 CRAFT-Bamboo Porsche being the one which escaped from the mess. The BMW and the Bentley had a good amount of damage, but manage to go back to garage for repairs.

The multiple yellow flag periods and reliability issues made the final two hours and important period of the race as the most crucial thing was to stay in the class leader’s lap while the field was bunched up, and this was proven when the No. 74 Jamec Pem Audi, which stopped on track with gearbox issues, handing the lead to the No. 37 WRT Audi and then to the No. 911 Manthey Porsche, which was trying to build a gap to do a final pit stop for fuel.

The No. 37 WRT Audi was leading in the final hour with the No. 75 SunEnergy1 Mercedes in furious pursuit while top-5 places were still open, but with 15 minutes to go the No. 69 Supabarn Audi had a contact with an I class car and stopped on track, only to get a massive hit from the No. 19 Nineteen Corp Mercedes coming at speed. With all the work needed to be done on site the race was suspended with 11 minutes to go. With the clock still running despite the suspension and not much things left to do, the race was finished and the No. 37 WRT Audi was declared the winner.


The No. 540 Black Swan Porsche won in the A Pro-Am class while stricken No. 69 Supabarn Audi won in A Am. The B class was won by the No. 4 Grove Porsche Cup, the C class was taken by the No. 30 Boat Works BMW and the I class was won by the No. 91 MARC Cars.

The next Intercontinental GT Challenge meeting is the TOTAL 24 Hours of Spa, the top event of the Blancpain GT Series calendar.

PHOTO: Team WRT

Comments