2012 Bathurst 12 Hour preview

[wombat666]

Italy on top at The Mountain

The Bathurst 12 Hour is under way at Mount Panorama and after the first day of practice Italy has the upper hand in the 27-car international grid. Sportscar specialist, Dane Alan Simonsen, driving the Maranello Motorsport-prepared Ferrari 458 GT3, set the quickest time in the third session with a 2:08.24sec lap in the car he is sharing with V8 Supercar legend John Bowe, Dominik Farnbacher and Peter Edwards.

This is the same car in which Simonsen set an unofficial lap record of 2:04 during a closed ‘drive Bathurst’ day last year. However, under 12 Hour rules, any cars breaking 2:08sec will be slugged with lead ballast to slow them down so Simonsen’s lap was well judged.

Second quickest was the Lamborghini LP 600 GT3 of V8 Supercar driver David Russell (2:09.17) with another V8 Supercar ace, Cameron McConville, third quickest with a 2:09.92 lap.

These three were followed by the two Phoenix Racing Audi R8 LMSs, with German Christopher Mies (2:11.41) knocking off five-times Bathurst 1000 winner – but once-a-year Audi pilot – Craig Lowndes (2:14.61). Audi R8s LMSs finished one-two in last year’s 12 Hour but it was a different team and Lowndes was second. This is the first appearance of Phoenix Racing at Mount Panorama and it has brought the latest 2011-spec cars for its Aussie/German driving combos. In the first practice session, Warren Luff – sharing Lowndes’ Audi R8 was quickest (2:08.64) and in the second session Craig Baird topped the timing sheets in his Ferrari 458 GT3 (2:10.43).

The vaunted two car Mercedes-Benz SLS squad entered by Australian team Erebus Racing, which runs Peter Hackett in the Australian GT series, and crack German outfit Black Falcon Racing, had a day of mixed fortunes. Both cars are owned and prepared Black Falcon, (based at the Nurburgring in Germany) with the silver ‘Aussie’ car crewed by Hackett, young V8 Supercar ace Tim Slade, experienced Dutch driver Jeroen Bleekemolen and US Grand Am racer Bret Curtis and the blue/white car raced by renowned driver coach Rob Wilson, Irish father and son duo Sean Paul and Sean Patrick Breslin, and Tanzanian Vimal Mehta.

The downside for the team was Curtis’s crash in practice two. On only his second lap, the American was caught out by a much slower car at the approach to Forests Elbow and spun, hitting a concrete wall. Damage to the rear of the car was mostly cosmetic but the chassis had moved slightly and the team worked feverishly to get it repaired for practice three but to no avail. The upside was the immediate speed of Bleekemolen, who was second quickest in the second session.

This is the sixth Bathurst 12 Hour of the ‘modern era’ after the race was re-established in 2007 after a 13-year break and six classes are eligible: three outright GT classes (A, B and C – Ferrari, Lamborghini, Benz and Audi), two production classes (D and E – Subaru WRX, BMW 335i, HSV GTS, Lotus Exige, Falcon) and an invitational division, represented this year by a diesel Seat Leon and two local Mazda RX7s.

This year’s grid is smaller but there are many more fast cars at the pointy end, so it remains to be seen which cars will be the hares and which teams will employ strategies designed to get them to the end of the race. Last year, the winning Audi R8 completed 292 laps and over 1800 kilometres and over that distance mechanical attrition and race mishaps can take their toll.
Two qualifying sessions will be held tomorrow (Saturday) and grid positions will be decided by averaging the best lap times of each car’s three drivers – a fair system as most teams have a mix of experienced/professional drivers and ‘gentleman’ drivers. In the case of four-driver teams – like the Mercedes, the McConville Lamborghini and Simonsen Ferrari – the quickest driver’s time is dropped and the other three times averaged.

The race starts at 6:15am on Sunday.

THESE CARS ARE OUT-BLOODY-STANDING around the Mount Panorama circuit!:applause::applause::applause:

59870 59871 59878 59879 59880 59881 59882 59889

[wombat666]

And a couple more!

59897 59898


59899

[demorier]

Saw some cable TV listing with this in it and thought it was a fill-in program from yesteryear....would like to see some, maybe a highlights package will come up.

[wombat666]

With a bit of luck we might get some highlights on SBS Tony.
Seems to have been entertaining with plenty of 'Bathurst' weather.



"Battling adverse conditions and a high-rate of attrition, including its sister car, Phoenix Racing powered through to give Audi back-to-back victories in the Armor All Bathurst 12 Hour.

Christopher Mies and Darryl O’Young joined Bathurst rookie Christer Jons on the top step of the podium Sunday evening after conquering Mount Panorama in what turned into a hard-fought, three-way fight for the overall win.

The No. 1 Audi R8 LMS, run by the veteran German sports car squad, crossed the line more than one-minute clear of the competition after a near flawless run in the rain-soaked contest.

"Chris [Mies] drove a lot in the earlier part of the race; he had more experience in the wet, so we were trying to get him while as much as we can," O'Young explained. "But then it never really stopped raining, so we just had to drive.

“It was really tough in the middle stints. There were times where we were doing [two-minute] 46's and 47's because there was so much water on the circuit. It was almost impossible to even go flat down the straights."


While the pre-dawn start saw dry conditions, rain hit the famed Australian circuit by the third hour and played a key factor in the remainder of the race.

A number of cars got caught out by the changing conditions, including the eventual-winning Audi, which spun off-course in the fifth hour in the hands of Mies, but crucially remained on the lead lap when the German rejoined.

“We were the fastest car on the straights but I made a mistake, spinning in the last corner,” Mies said. “We think the brake discs were covered with water and I spun and hit the wall lightly with no damage so we could continue."

Phoenix’s sister Audi of Aussies Craig Lowndes, Warren Luff and Mark Eddy was also contenders early on but a series of mistakes, including a fuel spill in pit lane and subsequent spin, ended with a heavy crash in the sixth hour by the two-time Australian GT champ Eddy.

The demise of the white Redback spider-liveried R8 LMS left the battle for the win between the No. 1 Phoenix entry and the No. 20 Erebus Racing Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 of Jeroen Bleekemolen, Tim Slade, Bret Curtis and Peter Hackett. While the gull-winged beast challenged in the closing stages, Bleekemolen was unable to make up enough ground in the end, settling for second.

"It was very close," Bleekemolen said. "The car in dry conditions wasn't fast enough, we were missing a little bit straight-line speed and torque out of the corners. But the team did a great job and everything ran really well. It's a shame we came so close and didn't win it but it's a good reason to come back."

Reigning Asian GT champions Clearwater Racing ran a solid race with its Ferrari F458 Italia GT3, which finished third in the hands of Matt Griffin, Craig Baird and Weng Mok, despite carrying a 50kg penalty due to Baird going over the benchmark 2:08 lap time in qualifying.

“It's gotta rank as one of the toughest races I've ever done," Griffin said. "When the rain was heavy, you couldn't really see where you were going, which isn't a real issue if all the cars are the same speed. But all of a sudden a slower-class BMW appears and the closing speed is 50 mph.”

Weather clearly played a factor in the outcome, as only three of the eight GT3 cars finished. The No. 22 United Autosports Audi was one of the first to be claimed by the mountain, as Frank Yu spun under wet conditions and severely damaged his R8 LMS in the third hour.

Other retirements included the No. 21 Black Falcon Mercedes, which crashed out just moments after Yu’s spin, as well as the No. 23 JBS Lamborghini that also made contact with the treacherous concrete walls.

Maranello Motorsport’s Ferrari dominated the opening hour in the hand of a storming Allan Simonsen, who set a new race lap record of 2:06.458. However, traction control and ECU problems ultimately ended the day for one of the pre-race favorites.

Eighteen of the 25 starters took the chequered flag, with the winning Audi covering more than 1,000 miles during the rain-soaked battle on the mountain."