You are here:
, , , ,
Posted in:
The 2023 grid for the Liqui Moly Bathurst 12 Hour will feature 26 cars; 21 GT3 machines, 8 of which will be full-pro cars, and 5 invitational cars of varying performance from Carrera Cup to GT4. While the grid is lean in comparison to years prior to the pandemic, it is a solid improvement on last year’s 20-car grid, and a step in the right direction to returning the Bathurst 12 Hour to be one of the marquee events on the international sportscar calendar
The bump in numbers from last year’s event in May to this year comes largely due to the re-introduction of the GT3 Pro category, which sees 8 cars entered amongst some shuffling in the lower classes. SunEnergy1, Craft Bamboo, and Supercheap Auto Triple Eight Racing all step up to the Pro Class in Mercedes AMG GT3’s, while Melbourne Performance Centre also jump up in their Audi R8 LMS after running in Pro-Am last season, while the addition of Team WRT bringing the BMW M4 GT3 for its Bathurst debut, along with international entries from GruppeM Mercedes and Manthey EMA Porsche have bolstered the grid.
Despite the added international interest, there has been much commentary on various social media forums and platforms lamenting the smaller-than-hoped car count. While two cars can certainly make a race (and 2022’s final stint between Jules Gounon and Maro Engel is a great example), 8 Pro cars is still a long way from the pre-pandemic 20-car Pro-class grid of 2020, as part of a 39-car entry.
In 2020, those 20 Pro-class cars were split amongst 11 marques, with factory supported outfits from Bentley, McLaren, Mercedes, Porsche, Nissan, Aston Martin, Audi, BMW, Lamborghini, Honda, and Ferrari. This year, the top class features only 4 makes – Mercedes AMG, Audi, Porsche, and BMW – while there is an additional make in the form of a Wall Racing entered Lamborghini for the Silver Cup class. Part of the excitement of sportscar racing and particularly GT3 is the variety of makes and body shapes all competing at the front, which is something that will be sorely lacking this year.
The Bathurst 12 Hour’s slogan as “Australia’s International Enduro” indicates an important factor in this puzzle. Much of the Pro-class entry prior to the pandemic has come through international works- or factory-backed entries, with a sprinkling of Australian teams, engineering and driving talent.
Domestically, the GT World Challenge Australia Championship has stiff competition from other categories when attracting entries, in a marketplace that is dominated by Supercars. GTWC Aus runs as a Pro-Am category in its top class, and frequently sees driver shuffling due to the pro-driver commitments in other series; last season, Prince Jefri Ibrahim raced with three different co-drivers in the #888 Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes AMG, due to scheduling conflicts for Shane Van Gisbergen and Broc Feeney throughout the season. And it’s not just the Pro-drivers race in other categories; several former Australian GT Am drivers, such as Tony Quinn, Indiran Padayachee, Marc Cini and 2019 Aus GT Champion Geoff Emery have moved to racing in Porsche Carrera Cup Australia. However, GTWC Australia has been on a recovery trail since being assimilated into the SRO GTWC structure in 2021, with a series-high 21-car grid for the 2022 finale at Adelaide in December indicating that the series is making good progress. Of those 21 cars, around 15 will be on the grid for the Bathurst 12 hour.
Another point to make is that the Pro-Am and Silver Cup classes have returned strong and align with their pre-pandemic numbers; 2023 will see 8 Pro-Am cars, up from 6 in 2020, and there will be 5 Silver Cup cars, compared to 7 in 2020. While the domestic market may not have the out-and-out professional set up that is seen in places such as Europe in the GTWC Europe, it certainly has a healthy core of committed customers that bolster out the lower classes.
And the lower classes have an important part in the Bathurst 12 Hour history. Initially, a Production Car race, the Bathurst 12 Hour introduced GT3 machinery in 2011, with a 9-car GT3 field part of a 26 car field featuring everything down to a BMW 130i. By 2015, it was clear that something had to give; 19 Safety Car interruptions throughout the day resulted in the second-shortest distance covered in the 12 hour’s GT history (and one of the race’s most iconic finishes to boot). The race was added to the IGTC in 2016 and streamlined into 4 classes; GT3, Carrera Cup, GT4, and Invitational cars. In 2017, this grid swelled to 55 cars; 33 GT3 machines, and 22 cars competing in lower classes.
In 2023, there will be 5 cars competing in lower classes.
Part of this reduction is due to the change in 2020 to move Class B from Porsche Carrera Cup, which has an extremely healthy and competitive Australian contingent, to Lamborghini Super Trofeo, which at the time had only a single example in the country. Even though Class B was reinstated as Carrera Cup in 2022, there has not been the uptake in that class to match its previous numbers.
While the non-GT3 numbers are low, the invitational entries on hand feature some fan favourites and some cool cars to boot. The MARC cars return, albeit with a smaller contingent than in years past, with only a single example of the MARC I and MARC II machines. M-Motorsport returns with the KTM X-BOW GT2 which ran last year, and Daytona Sports Cars return after a 5-year absence, debuting a new car to the Bathurst 12 hour in the form of the Sin R1.
As the GT3 calendar becomes more packed with racing and scheduling becomes more complex, it has become difficult (or rather impossible) for teams to be everywhere and compete in everything. In a 6 week ps, GT3 machinery is competing as the top GT class at the Daytona 24 Hours, the Bathurst 12 Hour, two back-to-back meetings in Dubai and Yas Marina for the Asian Le Mans Series (with Le Mans 24 Hour invites up for grabs) and then in Kyalami for the second round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge. Cars, spares, tools, personnel and freighting costs all play a role in determining which events teams and manufacturers can attend, and in such a congested schedule, a trip across the world to Australia is a hard sell.
But the draw is the allure of The Mountain. 26 cars with an 8 car pro-field might seem lean on paper, but The Mountain will put on a show, as it always does. Much like the 2022 event was an important event in kickstarting the magic again, 2023 reintroduces the Pro class and has names like Manthey, WRT, GruppeM and Craft Bamboo jump at the chance to race against the likes of Triple Eight Race Engineering and Melbourne Performance Centre is another small step in the right direction on the way back to Australia’s International Enduro.
Tagged with: Michael Zalavari
, , , ,
See more
Posted in:
0 Comments
Posted in:
0 Comments
© 2021 Dailysportscar. All Rights Reserved. Link Digital
Recent Comments