Bathurst 12H - Triple Eight Engineering dominates first practice

The first day of running at the Bathurst 12 Hours saw the No. 3 Mercedes-AMG GT888 - Mercedes-AMG Team Triple Eight Engineering of Whincup - van Gisbergen - Götz dominate the proceedings.

Published on 31/01/2020 à 07:47

⁰ View comments)

Bathurst 12H – Triple Eight Engineering dominates first practice

This time, the 2020 Intercontinental GT Challenge has indeed started with the first free practice sessions for the Bathurst 12 Hours in Australia.

A day comprising four driving sessions, and which saw the Mercedes-AMG GT3 n°888 – Mercedes-AMG Team Triple Eight Engineering of Jamie Whincup – Shane van Gisbergen – Maxi Götz sign the best cumulative time during the final session.

van Gisbergen, winner here in 2016 with Tekno Autosports and McLaren, remains the only driver to have crossed the barrier of 2'04" per lap, completing his time reference in 2'03"964, two tenths ahead of Anton de Pasquale (Mercedes-AMG GT3 n°777 - The Bend Motorsport Park) entered in Pro-Am.

The cars of the brand with the star took the lead this Friday, since in addition to the first session reserved for Bronze and Silver drivers, Raffaele Marciello (Mercedes-AMG GT3 n°999 – Mercedes-AMG Team GruppeM) and David Reynolds ( Mercedes-AMG GT3 n°75 – SunEnergy 1 Racing) had dominated FP2 and FP3.

EL3 where the Mercedes took six of the first seven places in the session, Joao Paulo de Oliveira hoisting his No. 3 – KCMG Nissan GT-R Nismo GT18 into 3rd position.

Behind the Mercedes, the Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo – Audi Sport Team Valvoline were the closest pursuers, with the #222 of Markus Winkelhock – Kelvin van der Linde – Mattia Drudi and #22 of Mirko Bortolotti – Christopher Mies – Garth Tander follows in 3rd and 4th positions of the day at five and eight tenths.

Lauréate en 2019, l’écurie Earl Bamber Motorsport s’est montrée dans le top 5 des EL1 avec la Porsche 911 GT3 R n°1 du trio Laurens Vanthoor – Earl Bamber – Craig Lowndes. Mais c’est l’exemplaire du Whole grained Racing by Stephen Grove, Brenton Grove and Benjamin Barker who signs the best mark for a Porsche in EL4, 1″ behind the leading Mercedes.

The main victim of the day was the #3 Nissan GT-R Nismo GT35 – KCMG of Josh Burdon, who made a mistake in FP1. The car Burdon shared with Katsumasa Chiyo and Tsugio Matsuda was forced to withdraw for the rest of the weekend.

On Saturday, a final free practice session will precede qualifying, which will be followed live video on our website.