Double for Manthey EMA Porsches at Bathurst 12 Hour.

SRO

Feb 18

Written By Car Racing Reporter

📷 © Courtesy of Bathurst 12 Hour. Start grid of the the **Repco Bathurst 12 Hour**

After an intense race with plenty of rain and caution periods, Manthey EMA did the double, with

Matt Campbell, Laurens Vanthoor and Ayhancan Güven winning the Repco Bathurst 12 Hour in the #912 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)
Alessio Picariello, Yasser Shahin, Harry King winning the Pro-Am class in the #911 The Bend Manthey EMA Porsche911 GT3 R (992).

Top 5 overall

📷 © Courtesy of SRO Motorsports Group. #912 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) with Laurens Vanthoor, Ayhancan Güven and Matt Campbell.

Matt Campbell — who won the Rolex 24 at Daytona two weeks ago — claimed his second Bathurst 12 Hour victory with Laurens Vanthoor and Ayhancan Güven, who claimed their first wins in the race, denying Jules Gounon a record fourth straight win.

Campbell, Vanthoor and Güven, lead the race during many hours but faced a drive-through penalty for not meeting the minimum 85-second pit stop time in the seventh hour that led to two trips through pit lane, compromising strategy, due to a misunderstanding of the rules by the Manthey EMA squad.

The Australian had a ten-plus second lead over Gounon prior to the last safety car period that led to a 30-minute shootout to the finish. Campbell did built up a narrow gap on the restart over Gounon crossing checkered flag first with a 2.6436 seconds gap.

📷 © Courtesy of Bathurst 12 Hour. #75 Mercedes-AMG Team Gruppe M Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Luca Stolz - Jules Gounon - Kenny Habul.).

Jules Gounon - who did run a new unofficial GT track record-breaking lap in modified Mercedes-AMG GT3 celebration the 130 years of racing of Mercedes- brought the #75 Mercedes-AMG Team Gruppe M Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 he shared with Luca Stolz and Kenny Habul to second after resisting to the pressure from the #13 Phantom Global Racing Porsche of Jaxon Evans..

📷 © Courtesy of SRO Motorsports Group. #22 Wash It Team MPC Audi

Jaxon Evans attack at The Chase on Gounon helped the #22 Wash It Team MPC Audi of Christopher Haase, Kelvin van der Linde and Liam Talbot clinch third.

📷 © Courtesy of SRO Motorsports Group. #13 Phantom Global Porsche 911 GT3 R (992).

Jaxon Evans, Bastian Buus and Joel Eriksson ended fourth in the #13 Phantom Global Porsche 911 GT3 R (992).

📷 © Courtesy of Bathurst 12 Hour. BMW M Team WRT #46 BMW M4 GT3.

The #46 BMW M4 GT3 of Valentino Rossi, Maxime Martin and Raffaele Marciello of BMW M Team WRT ended fifth after Maxime Martin went a bit too wide trying to overtake for P2. Sister #32 BMW M4 GT3 was eliminated from the Repco Bathurst 12 Hour following a heavy accident by Charles Weerts in the fifth hour.

Vincent VOSSE, Team principal Team WRT: "We started with a pole position which was a good thing. The rest is, of course, difficult to swallow. We did a few mistakes like the others but we had two strong cars and two strong lineups. So finishing fifth, it is not what we were hoping for, even more when you see that within the last 10 minutes of the race, we were fighting for P2. Let's analyse to see where we lost it. We usually say that Bathurst is not a race that you win, but a race that you lose, this is exactly what happened today."
Raffaele MARCIELLO, driver #46: "It was a tough race. I believe we were able to get a better result but at the end we did a few mistakes and we lost too much time. It is still good points for the championship. We will try to do better next time."

📷 © Courtesy of Bathurst 12 Hour. Charles WEERTS, driver #32: “Bathurst was the first weekend of the year. I was very much looking forward to being here. It started pretty well, the car was straight away in the window, and we had some good performance potential in the package that BMW and Team WRT gave us. Expectations were indeed high. Sheldon did a great lap and put the car on pole. A great effort! The start of the race went according to plan. We were always in the mix to fight for the lead. Then unfortunately I had a contact with a lapped car, and it was quite unlucky to get traffic at that exact post. There are different philosophies. Looking back at it now, I would have waited a bit longer, but we are racers, when we see a gap, we go for it! I still don’t have a lot of experience at Bathurst and I’m not the first one it happened to. I will not try to overtake on the outside there when I come back here. Looking back at the situation, I can only say that it is very unfortunate for our car. I feel sorry for my teammates, my team and BMW. But also, for myself because it is not the goal, after such good work from everybody. It motivates me even more for the rest of the season and I can’t wait to go back racing again!” Source: BMW M Team WRT

PRO-AM

📷 © Courtesy of SRO Motorsports Group. #911 The Bend Manthey EMA Porsche911 GT3 R (992)

Manthey EMA clinched a double victory with #911 Porsche of Alessio Picariello, Harry King and Yasser Shahin winning the GT3 Pro-Am class.

📷 © Courtesy of SRO Motorsports Group. #27 Heart of Racing by SPS Mercedes-AMG

The #27 Heart of Racing by SPS Mercedes-AMG of Ross Gunn, Alex Riberas and Ian James ended second of class despite a late-race drive-through penalty destroying what could have been a victory.