Laurens Vanthoor put the #912 Manthey EMA Porsche atop the timing screens in Free Practice 3 for the Bathurst 12 Hour runners, as the cloud cover started to roll in across the mountain. His time of 2:03.6897 was almost half a second ahead of the rest of the field, while cars positioned 2 to 12 all in the 2:04’s.
Practice 3 was the first ‘hot pit’ session of the weekend, with refuelling and tyre changes in the lane permitted. It was also plenty hot on track, with the overcast conditions causing the already warm conditions to become swelteringly humid.
The session ran trouble-free, with the only moment to speak of being a scary lock-up from Ahyancan Guven after he was given the #912 Porsche. Coming into The Cutting, Guven locked the rears and almost met the outside wall at a rapid pace. Luckily, he kept it off the wall, but only just.
Mikael Grenier put the #888 National Storage Triple Eight Mercedes into second, with a string of fast laps late in the session. He just missed out on the 2:03s, with a best time of 2:04.1551. Joel Eriksson put the #13 Phantom Team 75 Bernhard Porsche into third, with an impressive 2:04.4 on his first hit out at The Mountain. He would have improved that time too, but for a small mistake at Murray’s Corner on his next quickest lap.
Valentino Rossi was next up, putting the #46 WRT BMW in fourth with 2:04.4974, then Maro Engel, putting the special liveried #130 Gruppe M Racing Mercedes into the top 5.
The lead Pro-Am car was the #88 Triple Eight Racing Mercedes at the hands of Jordan Love, sitting in sixth, with the top 10 rounded out by Kelvin van der Linde in the #22 Wash-It Audi, Andrea Piccariello in the #911 Shell V-Power/The Bend Porsche, the #2 Audi of Markus Winkelhock, and the top Silver Class runner, Tony D’Alberto in the #93 Wall Racing Lamborghini Huracan.
Leading Invitation was once again Rylan Gray with a 2:07.43 in the #111 MRA Motorsport MARC II V8, while Adam Christodoulou set the fastest time in GT4, with a 2:16.39 in the #19 Nineteen Corp Mercedes AMG GT4.
The weather is looking ominous, and the question has become when, rather than if, the predicted storm will hit the track. Whether it happens before this afternoon’s Practice 4 at 16:10 local time is yet to be determined.
Image courtesy of Tim Upietz (Gruppe C GmbH)
