Bathurst 12 Hour Friday report: Audi shows off on the mountain

Day 1 of the 2022 Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour has come to an end. Weather conditions at the Mount Panorama Circuit were much warmer and dryer than forecast which was welcomed by both drivers and spectators alike.

It was a strong day for Audi after they topped the timing sheet in Practice 1, seeing Ricardo Feller in the #777 Audi Sport Team Valvoline ahead of 2020 winner Jules Gounon – returning to the mountain aboard the #75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3. Practice 2, for the amateur racers only, saw Brad Schumacher in the #74 Audi Sport Team Valvoline just ahead of Melbourne Performance Centre Audi driver Yasser Shahin, with Liam Talbon making it a 1-2-3 for Audi.

An eventful Practice 3 – again only for Bronze drivers – saw yet another Audi topping the timing sheet with the #65 Coinspot Audi R8 LMS GT3 with Liam Talbot behind the wheel. About halfway into Practice 3 Theo Koundouris (#47 Supabarn Audi R8 LMS GT3) found himself in the wall at the top of the mountain. The rear of Koundouris’ car backed into the wall heavily at Reid Park, taking out one of the events live streaming cameras. Koundouris parked his heavily damaged Audi at the approach to McPhillamy, triggering the red flag. A replacement Audi chassis is on the way from Melbourne.

Final practice for the day kicked off at 17:05 as the sun was setting and yet again was topped by Audi. Kelvin van der Linde (#74 Audi) achieved a time of 2m03.956s as temperatures dropped and the sun set behind the New South Wales hills. Reigning Bathurst 1000 champion, Chaz Mostert finished final practice in second place just 0.39s behind Van der Linde.

Track actions returns Saturday at 8:05 (00:05 CEST) in the morning with a one-hour practice session. Qualifying starts at 13:20 (5:20 CEST) with the Top 10 Shoot-out at 16:10 (8:10 CEST). All session can be watched live on GT.REPORT/live.

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