The Repco Bathurst 12 Hour for 2024 will see a 30-car field with 19 GT3 cars do battle. It features some of the best teams and drivers that international GT racing has to offer, amongst local Australian talent, including Supercars champions, Bathurst 1000 race winners, and GTWC Australia champions.
The 30-car grid is a modest improvement over last year’s 26, which featured an 11-car GT3-Pro class. Represented this year are Mercedes-AMG, Porsche, BMW, Audi and Lamborghini in GT3, while the returning GT4 class features Mercedes-AMG, as well as McLaren and Ginetta. The grid is rounded out by a seven-car Invitational entry, featuring event favourites, the MARC cars, as well as the KTM X-Bow GT2, and the debut of French manufacturer Vortex.
This week’s event marks the start of the 2024 Intercontinental GT Challenge season, with 14 of the GT3 cars set to race eligible for IGTC points. It’s also Fanatec GT Australia’s opening round, kicking off this year’s global Fanatec GT World Challenge Powered by AWS campaign – a series comprising 30 events and 52 races across four championships on as many continents. There are so many storylines to follow…
First up, here’s a breakdown of the Pro category:
The GT3 Pro class has an 11-car entry, featuring strong representation from Mercedes-AMG, with five examples on the grid, while Porsche, BMW, and Audi are fielding two Pro cars apiece.
Kicking off the Pro entry is the two-time defending champions in the #75, SunEnergy1 example, fielding an unchanged line-up from last year’s success.
Kenny Habul and Luca Stolz are looking for three in a row, while Jules Gounon is looking to become the first person to win the Bathurst 12 Hour for a fourth time, after taking three consecutive wins – two with SunEnergy1, and in 2020 with Bentley Team M-Sport.
Their main adversary in the last two editions has been the #130 Gruppe M Racing entry, which is on the grid once again, this time sporting a handsome livery to kick off the celebrations for 130 years of Mercedes in motorsport. This year, Maro Engel is joined by Felipe Fraga, and 2017 Bathurst 1000 winner David Reynolds, who himself has plenty of GT3 experience in Australia and at The Mountain.
After a close-fought second in 2022, Engel and Gounon came to blows in the final stint in 2023, with Gounon fired off track and Engel penalised. Despite the penalty, Engel brought the Gruppe M Mercedes home on the podium in third, missing out on the win by only 1.417 seconds.
A further international entry comes in the form of the #77 from Craft-Bamboo Racing. 2011 12-hour winner Darryl O’Young’s team features a mix of international stars and local talent for this one. Mercedes-AMG Pro drivers Maximillian Götz and Daniel Juncadella are joined by Australian Jayden Ojeda, who impressed in the GTWC Australia last season in a Mercedes with Harrolds Volante Rosso Racing.
Up against the international teams are two Mercedes-AMGs entered under Australian flags, operated by Triple Eight Race Engineering and Scott Taylor Motorsport.
Fresh off a double victory in last weekend’s Asian Le Mans Series double-header in Abu Dhabi, Triple Eight Race Engineering is fielding the #888 National Storage car in the Pro class. Its crew features the two Supercars main-gamers Broc Feeney and Will Brown, joined by part of the third-placed driver combo from last year’s event, Mikael Grenier.
While both Feeney and Brown are a young pairing, Australian Supercars fans will be well aware of their pedigree, with both expected to challenge for the Supercars championship in 2024.
Scott Taylor Motorsport brings an interesting mix of drivers from the Australian market. The #222 will this year be piloted by Tickford Racing Supercars drivers Cameron Waters and Thomas Randle, joined by Triple Eight Racing driver and Bathurst legend Craig Lowndes. Once again supporting the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia, the STM team will be raising funds throughout the week. With Lowndes, Waters and Randle, this entry is sure to be in the mix at the pointy end.
Going up against the squad of Mercedes AMGs are two cars each from Porsche, Audi, and BMW.
Manthey EMA Motorsport returns with the #912, hoping to go one better with the 992-spec 911 GT3 R after finishing a very close second in 2023. This time, Aussie ace Matt Campbell is joined by fellow Porsche Penske Motorsport pilot Laurens Vanthoor, making his return to Bathurst for the first time since 2020, and Ayhancan Guven, from Turkiye, making his Bathurst debut.
Campbell has been a star at the Mountain, taking an Allan Simonsen Pole Award in 2020, as well as 5 class podiums, and of course making the pass for the win in 2019, to take Porsche’s only overall win so far.
Joining Manthey is Phantom Global Team75 Bernhard, making its Bathurst debut. The team has signed brand-new Supercars driver (and Porsche Supercup race winner) Jaxon Evans joined by 2023 Porsche Supercup Champion Bastian Buus and Swede Joel Eriksson, in the #13. Neither Buus nor Eriksson have seen Bathurst before, but with Evans’ experience in Porsches at The Mountain, they are sure to be on the pace almost from the get-go.
Originally, a third Porsche was entered in the Pro class from HubAuto Racing, but the Taiwanese team has been forced to withdraw from the event on short notice due to issues with shipping its cars and equipment to New South Wales.
Audi has two cars in the Pro class as well, each following the SunEnergy1 Racing model of two Pros and an Australian bronze driver.
Firstly, the #2 KFC Racing Audi features Bathurst local Brad Schumacher, joined by Audi factory drivers Ricardo Feller and Markus Winkelhock. Winkelhock has been a staple at the 12 Hour, competing every edition since 2014, bar last year, while Feller immediately impressed on his Bathurst debut in 2022, and backed that up with another stellar performance in ’23 to bring the Pro-Am #777 home second in class.
Next from Audi is the Wash-It #22. Last year’s GTWC Australia champion and Bathurst 12 Hour Pro-Am winner Liam Talbot is joined by Kelvin van der Linde and Christopher Haase – two mainstays of Audi at The Mountain.
While both Talbot and Schumacher are championship-winning Am drivers from last year’s GTWC Australia, it would be a hard task for them to emulate Habul’s strategy from last year. But, if the cards fall their way, the likes of Feller, Winkelhock, Haase and van der Linde are certainly amongst the best of the pro field.
The final two cars on the Pro entry list come from BMW Team WRT. Interestingly, its two M4 GT3s are the only Pro-class cars not to feature any Antipodean drivers.
WRT is in its second year of running BMWs at The Mountain, and the experience from last year’s fourth and seventh-place finishes will go a long way in preparing it for this year’s event.
In the #32 will be Sheldon van der Linde, Dries Vanthoor, and Charles Weerts, in an unchanged line-up from last year, while the #46 will once again feature Valentino Rossi, along with 2024 WEC teammate Maxime Martin, and the BMW debut at the event for Raffaele Marciello. Marciello was part of the third-placed GruppeM Mercedes team last year and will be out looking for redemption after the tense final moments of last year’s race.
With 11 high-quality teams driven by 33 incredible drivers, it’s a lottery who will end up on top at the end of the Bathurst 12 Hour come Sunday afternoon!
Stay tuned for the second part of this rundown, featuring the cars from the other categories, which will go live tomorrow.
