Crash ends speed feast in Mt Panorama drama

A CRASH at the fastest part of Mt Panorama brought the fastest Friday in Bathurst 12Hour history to an early end.

The red flags came out with 15 minutes left in practice four after the Class C No. 15 BMW of Kent Baigent and Class A No. 8 Mercedes of Max Twigg made contact at the Chase.

Baigent was taken to the medical centre, his BMW making nose-first contact with the wall before spinning to a stop, while Twigg’s Mercedes slewed into the sand trap at more than 270km/h.

“That’s my fastest spin so far,” Twigg said yesterday. I was going sideways in the sand and I said out loud ‘don’t tip’.

“We only just touched, but at that speed it was enough. I flashed my lights, he knew I was coming. I thought he was going to stay left but he came back across to the right and we touched.”

The early end to the session handed fastest lap honours to Audi, Bathurst debutant Fred- eric Vervisch in the No. 22 Jamec-Pem Audi he will share with Supercars star Garth Tander and South African driver Kelvin van der Linde.

It’s the fastest time set on a Friday in the race’s history.

“Not bad, for a first time for sure,’’ Vervisch said. “Better than I expected so it’s good to be in front but you want to be there on Sunday.

“It’s very nice to have Garth as a teammate; he knows the track well. We did a track walk yesterday and he really gave us some good indications which obviously helped today.”

The No. 43 Schnitzer Team BMW ended the day in second place after topping the second and third sessions, Chaz Mostert setting the fastest sectors of the day to that point on his first two flying laps to post a best just 0.25 of a second shy of the Jamec-Pem Audi.

With the red flag preventing many teams from getting a chance to set a representative time, yesterday’s times leave the form guide muddled.