Mercedes And Porsche Battle To Halfway Point
It has been a hard-fought Bathurst 12 Hour so far, with all 7 of the remaining Pro cars still running on the lead lap. The second quarter of the race has been lead predominantly by the #912 Manthey EMA Porsche, who currently sits in 2nd, with the #75 SunEnergy1 Mercedes recently taking the lead by running a long middle stint, and a cracking pit stop from the team returning the car back to the lead of the race.
Gounon in the #75 leads from Jaminet in the #912 by almost 20 seconds, with Raffaele Marciello in the #999 GruppeM Mercedes hot on the tail of the Porsche. Daniel Juncadella sits 4th in the #77 Craft Bamboo Mercedes, with the two WRT BMW’s completing the top 6. Broc Feeney has just pit the #888 Supercheap Auto Mercedes from 3rd place, and has rejoined in 7th place, still on the lead lap.
The leading Pro-Am car is the #777 The Bend Motorsport Park Audi, with Chris Mies behind the wheel. They are currently a lap down, along with the #65 Sportsbet Audi and the #24 Makita Volante Rosso Mercedes, which lead Pro-Am for a period of time with David Reynolds at the wheel.
There has been two Safety Car periods in the middle phase of the race. Firstly, with 8 hours and thirty minutes remaining, the #44 Valmont Racing car crashed heavily in the Esses after making contact with lapped traffic. Aaron Cameron, who was leading the Silver class at the time, made a move to pass Theo Koundouris in the #47 Supabarn Audi over Skyline. The cars appeared to make ccontact side to side, with the #47 spinning and avoiding major contact with the walls, but the #44 making heavy impact to the inside wall on the approach to the dipper.
OUCH – that's a big one…
The Silver class-leading #44 Valmont Racing Mercedes-AMG and #47 Supabarn Audi R8 have triggered the second Safety Car of the race #B12hr pic.twitter.com/wzvrUk8PZs
— Bathurst 12 Hour (@Bathurst12hour) February 4, 2023
Thankfully, driver Aaron Cameron has been confirmed to be alright.
Great work from the Manthey EMA team enabled the #912 Porsche to jump the #888 Supercheap Auto Mercedes in the pits, giving Thomas Preining the lead of the race. He managed to skip away from the field on the restart, before another safety car just before the 4 hour mark to recover the #19 Nineteen Corporation Mercedes GT4 that had come to a stop on the exit of Hell Corner.
Van Gisbergen in the #888 Supercheap Auto Mercedes was under fire on the restart, with Augusto Farfus in the #46 WRT BMW pushing the Mercedes hard. An overambitious effort at Hell Corner put Farfus on the defensive, opening the door for Maro Engel in the #999 GruppeM Mercedes to have a run around the outside on Mountain Straight. The pair made contact, with Engel being forced wide, allowing the sister WRT car with Sheldon van der Linde to take advantage, putting the #32 through into 4th.
The @followWRT tag team sees off @MaroEngel!
https://t.co/TNcx6ZTzHa
https://t.co/a40TOYZhI4#IGTC | #B12Hr pic.twitter.com/Yu0yOJg8pE— Intercontinental GT Challenge (@IntercontGTC) February 4, 2023
The pair of safety cars close together allowed a number of teams to get the ‘lucky dog’ wave around and get them back in the hunt. Notably the #65 Sportsbet Audi and #55 Fuchs Lubricant Audi were beneficiaries after they had issues early in the segment.
The #65 Sportsbet Audi was sitting competitively at the 3 hour mark, but Liam Talbot tagged the wall on the exit of Griffins Bend, damaging a wheel. The team spent two laps in the pits, which they were able to gain back with the close safety cars.
The #55 Fuchs Lubricants Audi gained back two of it’s four lost laps after a radio issue played havoc with Brad Schumacher’s stint. Schumacher was given a 2-minute stop-and-go penalty for ignoring blue flags, on top of a drive through penalty for the same offence. Schumacher gave some insight as to the sequence of events from his perspective in the car, without a radio.
“We had the safety car which left me at the front of the train, at that stage I didn’t know if I could go past the safety car for the waveby or not and I didn’t, and everyone else did.” Schumacher commented to the host broadcaster. “I assumed I was on the lead lap, I had good pace, in the 2:04’s and the pros behind me were struggling to overtake. I wasn’t getting blue flags on the corners because I gapped them across the top.
“We’re back to a lap down, and it makes me look really silly. We’ll get the radio fixed and move on.”
Schumacher is currently in the car, down in 14th, 2 laps down, just behind the leading Silver Cup car, the #10 MYLAND Team IMS Audi with Daniel Gaunt at the wheel.
The sun is certainly out at Mount Panorama, with the temperatures rising and the UV baking the circuit. Tyres have been noted to be sitting out in the sun behind the garages again, with teams looking to bleed as much air out of the tyres in order to sit the new Pirelli P-Zero DHF tyres in their optimum window. There’s still plenty of racing to go, as almost 1000km has been covered in the first half of the race.
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