BMW scores first win in 15 years with dominant 1-2

BMW has received the 2025 Bathurst 12 Hour, with the WRT BMW M4 GT3 of Kelvin van der Linde, Sheldon van der Linde and Augusto Farfus taking its maiden win within the race’s GT3 period and main a 1-2 end.

Two of the modifications within the race rules since 2024 proved to be essential and went a way in figuring out the winner of the race, held in sizzling and dry circumstances on the 3.86-mile/6.213km Mount Panorama circuit.

In earlier years drivers had been restricted to stints of not more than 32 laps earlier than refuelling, and needed to serve a minimal variety of stops. However these home windows had been large open this 12 months and BMW made the very best use of the modifications, and that made the distinction.

Sheldon van der Linde handed the automobile over to his brother Kelvin with simply over an hour of the race remaining, with a charging Chaz Mostert-driven Ferrari shut behind him. However everybody at WRT – and Mostert – knew that the Italian automobile would want lots of Security Automobile laps to make the end with out one other pitstop. Even after Mostert took the lead at The Chase with 37 minutes of the race remaining, no Security Vehicles appeared within the closing half-hour and that sealed the deal for the Belgian group.

Mostert pitted from the lead with 22 minutes of the race to run, resumed in sixth and moved up locations when Matt Campbell and Lucas Auer, who had been additionally out of their closing gasoline home windows, pitted late within the race.

Within the different BMW, Raffaele Marciello was on a cost, steaming across the exterior of Jules Gounun’ Mercedes-AMG at The Chase to take third, after which chased after the opposite automobile to make the very best of its gasoline, the Craft-Bamboo Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Auer. However the Mercedes additionally fell foul of its gasoline window, pitting with six minutes left on the clock and selling the second BMW of Marciello/Valentino Rossi/Charles Weerts to second.

#46 BMW M4 GT3, Staff WRT: Valentino Rossi, Charles Weerts, Raffaele Marciello

Picture by: SRO

“It was the toughest two hours of my life,” stated Kelvin after a ten.25s victory.

“We had been fuel-saving, particularly when Chaz was coming, and it was so arduous. We’re very proud.”

Farfus added: “We’ve been so shut, to this point and we wound up having a quick automobile and we executed an ideal race.”

Sheldon echoed his brother’s phrases: “I’ve to say it’s sensible, I feel we had been flawless from the get-go this morning. I’ve no phrases. We’ve been making an attempt to win this race for 3 years!”

The BMW consequence was not with out some success. Rossi drove swiftly, however was noticed passing a slower GT4 entry underneath yellow flags. Straight afterwards, whereas Weerts was finishing the ensuing drive-through penalty, one other Security Automobile interval for a separate incident allowed him to minimise the lack of monitor place and stick with the leaders, even when it dropped the automobile from second to eighth on the time.

What the race got here all the way down to was the six main vehicles: each BMWs; the 75 Specific Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Gounon, Luca Stolz and Kenny Habul; Mostert, Will Brown and Daniel Serra within the Come up Racing Ferrari 296 GT3; the Craft-Bamboo Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Auer, Maxi Gotz and Jayden Ojeda and the Absolute Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of defending winners Campbell and Ayhancan Guven, and Alessio Picariello. They completed in that order.

The perfect of the non-Professional entries in seventh outright turned out to be the Coronary heart of Racing Mercedes-AMG of Ross Gunn, Ian James and Zach Robichon, which took out the Bronze class.

The Professional Am class winner was the second Come up Ferrari, pushed by Jaxon Evans, Alessio Rovera, Brad Schumacher and Elliot Schutte, which received the higher of the Manthey EMA Porsche. Within the opening half of the race, the Porsche’s Professional drivers Laurin Heinrich and Morris Schuring had been proper among the many Professional entries however the automobile misplaced tempo in the course of the stints of Bronze drivers Sam and Yasser Shahin.

Within the Silver class and ninth outright was the #93 Wall Racing Lamborghini Brendon Leitch, Tony D’Alberto, Adrian Dietz and Australian tv character Grant Denyer.

The Adam Christodolou/Daniel Bilksi/Mark Griffith McLaren was the only real finisher within the GT4 class. The David Crampton/Trent Harrison/Glen Wooden KTM X-bow took out the Invitational Class, despite the only real entrant within the class dropping 20-plus laps whereas crash injury was repaired.

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