SunEnergy1 and Gounon win the Bathurst 12 Hours

Member of the SunEnergy1 Mercedes tandem, Jules Gounon triumphed for the second time in a row at the Bathurst 2 Hours.

Published on 15/05/2022 à 11:34

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SunEnergy1 and Gounon win the Bathurst 12 Hours

SunEnergy1 and Jules Gounon win the 12 Bathurst 2022 Hours. ©SRO

Two years after his success with Bentley alongside Jordan Pepper and Maxime Soulet, Jules Gounon leaves Australia with another victory at the Bathurst 12 Hours. The Habs celebrate this time with SunEnergy 1 which engaged a Mercedes-AMG GT3 with Luca Stolz, Kenny Habul and Martin Konard.

However, everything seemed to be smiling for the official No. 8 Audi R3 LMS GT74 of Team Valvoline of the van der Linde-Berthon- trio.Schumacher. But the situation would change shortly after the 9^e hour of the race when the stewards imposed a 2-minute penalty on the No. 74 for too long a stint by Brad Schumacher.

A boon for SunEnergy1 which was not asking for so much in the home stretch of this 2022 edition of the Bathurst 12 Hours. At the controls of the race and the No. 3 Mercedes-AMG GT76 of the Australian team, Luca Stolz had an excellent final stint before giving way to Jules Gounon who left with a 20 second lead over Maro Engel (Mercedes-AMG GT3 No. 91 – Craft-Bamboo Racing) for the home stretch.

If the German appeared threatening by erasing a good part of his delay, a short passage through the gravel trap at the top of the hill allowed Jules Gounon to breathe in the last part of the race. The gap fell to 13 seconds, the Habs were ultimately not going to flinch to offer themselves a 2^e success at Mount Panorama, 1^e for Mercedes since 2013 and the victory of the Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 of Erebus Motorsport (Jäger-Roloff-Schneider). Triple Eight Racing (van Gisbergen-Feeney-Ibrahim) completed the podium of these 12 Bathurst 2022 Hours for a 3% Mercedes Top 100 at the finish.

🏆 RACE WINNERS! 🏆@JulesGounon brings it home for SunEnergy1 and @amgmotorsport!

Congratulations to Kenny Habul, Matin Konrad and Luca Stolz who did the heavy lifting earlier in the race.#IGTC | #B12Hr 🦘 pic.twitter.com/NzAANbgtuk

— Intercontinental GT Challenge (@IntercontGTC) May 15, 2022

It's back to back @Bathurst12hour wins for @JulesGounon – the first time that's happened since 2011/12.#IGTC | #B12Hr 🦘 pic.twitter.com/JAxpVzhD03

— Intercontinental GT Challenge (@IntercontGTC) May 15, 2022