Practice 3 for all drivers has seen another steady session at The Mountain, with Will Brown topping the session in the #55 Jamec Racing Audi. Brown was the only driver to dip into the 2:03s with a 2:03.8992, as the ambient conditions were much warmer and the track was bathed in sunlight, compared to the overcast conditions of the morning.
As the first hot-pit session of the weekend, teams took opportunities to practice driver changes and refuelling, with most drivers getting a lap at some point during the session. Second place went to the #61 EBM Porsche, with both Ricardo Feller and Laurin Heinrich setting laps in the 2:04.2s, but the team struggled with their driver change to Klaus Bachler, taking over 4 minutes to install the Austrian driver.
The #888 Team GMR Mercedes waited until the last lap to jump up the order into third, with the top 5 being rounded out by the #46 Team WRT BMW, and the #222 Scott Taylor Motorsport Mercedes. While the outright pace was slower than the morning’s session, the top 18 cars managed a lap time better than 2:05.
The session ran uninterrupted once again; however, there was one scary moment at the top of the circuit for the #86 High Class Racing Porsche. Anders Fjordbach lost the rear of the Porsche 911 coming through the Metal Grate and spun the car a full rotation across the top of the Vista. Incredibly, the car avoided the walls, and Fjordbach regained control and returned to the pits.
Most cars got out on track, with 34 of the 35 cars logging 15 laps or more. The only exception was, once again, the #15 Volante Rosso McLaren, which was plagued by gearbox issues and remained in the garage for the entirety of Practice 3.
Practice 4, for Bronze drivers only, gets underway at 16:40 Local time (AEDT, UTC+11) to round out track action on day 1 of the Bathurst 12 Hour.
Image courtesy of Bathurst 12 Hour
