The 2025 Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour once again showed why Mount Panorama remains one of endurance racing’s most unforgiving venues. What began as a race shaped by early pace and repeated interruptions slowly transformed into a long, tense strategic battle, with the final outcome only becoming clear deep into the closing hour.
Rather than being decided by outright speed alone, the race rewarded those able to balance aggression with restraint, a familiar Bathurst theme that played out perfectly across 12 demanding hours.
Early pace and shifting control
From the outset, the tone was set by the cars at the sharp end of qualifying. Pole-sitters Craft-Bamboo Racing’s Mercedes-AMG controlled the early morning, while rivals rotated through the lead as Safety Cars repeatedly bunched the field. Those interruptions, all concentrated in the first half of the race, made it difficult for any one car to break clear and placed a premium on clean execution in traffic.
As the race settled, several contenders began to emerge throughout the afternoon. The Arise Racing Ferrari, Absolute Racing Porsche and both Team WRT BMWs all featured at the front at various stages, each following subtly different strategic paths. While some opted to lean on pace, others began quietly managing fuel and tyres, looking ahead to what would inevitably be a decisive final stint.
A long green run and a late twist
The complexion of the race changed entirely once the final Safety Car period ended just after the seven-hour mark. From that point, the field ran uninterrupted all the way to the chequered flag, placing maximum pressure on strategy and concentration.
In that phase, Chaz Mostert’s Arise Racing Ferrari became the reference. Unleashed from fuel-saving constraints, Mostert charged through the field and made a bold move for the lead at The Chase in the closing stages, briefly appearing to have turned the race on its head. However, that pace came at a cost. With fuel margins tightening, the Ferrari was forced to pit with just over 20 minutes remaining, handing the lead back to Team WRT’s #32 BMW.
That stop proved decisive. It was the final lead change of the race, occurring just 11 laps from the finish – the latest such moment at Bathurst in several years – and it swung the balance firmly in BMW’s favour.
Strategy rewarded at the finish
From there, Team WRT executed the closing stages to perfection. Kelvin van der Linde brought the BMW home without a final splash, securing both BMW’s first GT3-era Bathurst victory and a rare one–two finish for the Belgian squad alongside brother Sheldon van der Linde and BMW veteran Augusto Farfus. Behind, the sister BMW recovered impressively from an earlier drive-through penalty, with Raffaele Marciello producing a late overtake on Jules Gounon to seal second place for himself and co-drivers Charles Weerts and Valentino Rossi.
Further back, the attrition of the Mountain told its usual story. By the end, only a handful of cars remained on the lead lap, underlining how relentlessly Bathurst punishes even the smallest errors.
The 2025 Bathurst 12 Hour was a race shaped by decisions as much as by driving, and one that rewards revisiting as the story of the Mountain continues to evolve
Long road back
As the world of sports car racing looks ahead to the 2026 Bathurst 12 Hour, the grid of 35 cars, the largest since before the pandemic, marks a clear turning point and signals that the event has completed its long road back after the disrupted seasons that followed the last normal running in 2020.
Photos by David Gallagher and Marty De Pasquale.
All you need to know about the 2026 Bathurst 12 Hour
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