Foreign cars lead Bathurst 12 Hour practice
THE internationals have taken a grip on the Bathurst 12 Hour as Audi and BMW traded blows on a shortened day of practice at Mount Panorama.
Belgian Frederic Vervisch and Germany’s Marco Wittmann set the pace yesterday, with Vervisch recording the fastest opening-day lap in Bathurst 12 Hour history.
The final session was cut more than 10 minutes short following a 280km/h crash in- volving Scott Taylor’s Motorsport Mercedes and Baigent Motorsport BMW M4 GT4.
Vervisch, teaming up with former Supercars champion Garth Tander and South African Kelvin van der Linde, is making his debut at the event which is part of the Intercontinental GT Challenge.
“Everything is going well. It’s difficult to see the real pace of everyone and the second thing is you have to have a clear lap as well,” said the 31year-old.
“Not bad, for a first time for sure better than I expected so it’s good to be in front, but you want to be there on Sunday.
“The car is really nice, we did some improvements from earlier in the day and I’m more comfortable and confident, it’s really cool. Like everybody describes, it’s really nice.”
Vervisch said Tander’s track knowledge had helped the two rookie Bathurst internationals.
“It’s nice to have Garth as a teammate, he knows the track, we did a track walk yesterday and he really gave us some good indications which obviously helped today,” he said.
The Audi finished 0.2518 seconds clear of Tickford Racing’s Chaz Mostert, BMW’s Wittmann and early pacesetter, Brazilian DTM ace Augusto Farfus, in a BMW M6 GT3.