Porsche Win Their First Bathurst 12 Hour in a Thriller

Mount Panorama always seems to deliver and Sunday’s Bathurst 12 Hour was another stunner.

It was won by the  #912 Earl Bamber Motorsport Porsche driven by Dirk Werner, Dennis Olsen and the man of the moment, Matt Campbell. In its last race, the #62 Aston Martin V12 Vantage took second after leading for much of the final hour.

The battle for the podium was on in the final 20 minutes. In the end,  Raffaele Marciello in the #999 Team GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 held off a late charging Shane Van Gisbergan in the #888 Mercedes to take the third step of the podium.

As 5.45am struck, 38 cars were unleashed onto the 3.86 mile circuit led by Marciello. Four safety cars in the opening half of the race with numerous lead changes and intense fights made it clear that this race was going down to the wire. BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Bentley, Aston Martin and Nissan were all in contention. Audi appeared to lack pace.

It was all about staying on the lead lap and not finding yourself in trouble. Easier said than done. Many found trouble including the #22 Audi, the #27 Ferrari and the #234 Porsche.

With three hours to go, there were just seven cars on the lead lap all of which were on differing strategies. Staggeringly, there was over a four hour period of consistent green flag running; we had a pure endurance race on our hands. It is an event record for longest ever time between safety cars and also the number of laps between safety car interruptions. For a track that is so tough, so demanding and brutal to the driver and the car (especially with this year’s intense heat) this is astonishing.

The smaller grid size was excellent for the race. There is a lot of fondness for the lower classes and they should continue to have a presence but the balance was, for me, perfect this year. That’s partly why we got so much green flag running.

At the final pitstops, Matt Campbell got in the #912 Porsche and fresh rubber was put on the car. All the other cars on  the lead lap did not take on new tyres, they took just fuel. This saved them around 15-20 seconds which means Campbell dropped from the lead down to 4th with less than an hour to go.

With Chaz Mostert (#42 BMW) ahead of Campbell in third, Marciello (#999 Mercedes) up the road in second and Britain’s Jake Dennis now leading in the #62 Aston Martin.

The Porsche lacked straight line speed compared to the others but was mighty over the top of the mountain. Campbell had trouble getting by Mostert so with just under 40 minutes to go, he went for it at the braking zone of The Chase. He made contact with Mostert, and escorted Mostert wide to take the position. This move was investigated post race and Campbell was cleared so he and Porsche kept the win.

There was some controversy with Augusto Farfus, in particular, not happy with the move. In my opinion, the move was hard but fair. Mostert could have left a bit more room to avoid contact and Campbell was just about far enough up alongside the BMW. Crucially, Campbell was not locking up, was under control and would have made the corner had Mostert not been there so it was a good, aggressive overtake in my opinion.

Also, there was far worse moves earlier in the race. The #42 BMW itself when at the hands of Farfus and Martin Tomcyzk was pretty aggressive so justice was done in some kind of way. Not that it matters too much, as every incident is different.

Bentley fell out of contention after Andy Soucek in the Bentley pressed the wrong button, not once but twice, which meant he stalled and had to restart the car which cost him 40+ seconds. The second time, came at his last pitstop so the Bentley had little time to recover from the costly error. It is incredibly odd indeed considering that Soucek has done three full Blancpain GT seasons in the Bentley. Perhaps the cockpit design has changed slightly over the winter, either way it is slightly embarrassing for such an experienced GT race to make that kind of mistake.

A safety car eventually arrived for the recovery of a stricken GT4 KTM down Conrad Straight. This set up a classic grandstand finish at Mount Panorama.

The race was on and Campbell had fresher tyres than the cars around him. With the field bunched up again, it was down to him to make the moves and take his Porsche to the front of the race. First up was Raffaele Marciello.

Marciello defended brilliantly in the final stint as his tyres were completely worn, he could not hold off Campbell though as the Australian darted down the inside at turn one with a late braking manoeuvre.

Next up, Jake Dennis. Campbell closed the gap down rapidly but Dennis also defended well. It took a crazy move to take the lead so Campbell squeezed down the inside at Forest Elbow . There was hardly any room as Campbell was just millimetres away from hitting the concrete wall on the inside. The lightest of contact was made but it was simply another bold, brave and beautiful overtake from Campbell.

He knew that he didn’t have the straight line speed to overtake down Conrad or Mountain Straight so he had to make a committed move at the Elbow and it paid off in abundance. Credit to Dennis as well, he had a chance to take back the lead immediately at the next few corners but he kept his head and didn’t make a rash move.

With the battle of the lead over, the final 10 minutes saw the battle for the final step of the podium rage on. Shane Van Gisbergan in the #888 Mercedes took on fresh tyres on the right hand side of the car to give himself a shot of taking third place. The Kiwi managed to get past Soucek and Mostert but Martciello withstood the pressure and held on by just 0.2 of a second.

It was a draining race for the drivers with intense heat from the sun and the fast nature of the race. The distance record was destroyed as 312 laps were complete (the previous record being 297). 1938.5 km were run which is not too far away from double the distance of the Bathurst 1000.

In fact, the average speed of the race was over 100MPH. Even with this, the racing was as fierce as ever and the competition as close as ever. Seven cars finished on the lead lap with five different marques representing the top seven. It was the greatest Bathurst 12 Hour yet.