Team WRT tops first Bathurst 12 Hour practice

Charles Weerts put the #32 BMW M4 on top of Friday morning’s first session with a 2:03.8685s on his 11th lap of 13.

Weerts was the only driver to go below the 2m04s bracket, with the #222 Scott Taylor Motorsport trio of Chaz Mostert, Cameron Waters, and Thomas Randle second.

“It always feels good,” said Weerts’ teammate Kelvin van der Linde.

“I wouldn’t say it feels like winning the race just yet, but it’s always a nice confirmation for the boys who have built up the car over the weekend to make sure that everything is running nicely and obviously the confirmation of being in the mix is a great confirmation for us.

“Still a long way to go, as you know, this weekend. We’ll see how it goes.”

This year’s Bathurst 12 Hour is the first for Team WRT with the EVO specification.

A variety of cars are debuting at Mount Panorama, including the Corvette Z06 and the Ford Mustang GT3.

“Any race car feels great here at Bathurst, but particularly the BMW M4,” van der Linde continued.

“It’s a privilege to drive, as I say every year. I enjoyed every lap. Now we’re going to go into the thick of things and try focus on the race.

“I guess everyone is kind of on the same schedule, it’s very limited on tyres, which is a critical element here this weekend. I think everyone will be on their race planning for Sunday.”

Practice 1 was relatively incident-free, save for Maxime Martin suffering a right rear puncture on the #888 Team GMR Mercedes-AMG.

That car completed just nine laps, and ended the morning in 26th with a 2:07.0584s to be more than three seconds off the pace.

Volante Rosso Motorsport quartet Rylan Gray, Bayley Hall, Marcos Flack, and Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer spent the session in the pit lane and did not set a lap. Speedcafe understands the #14 McLaren 720S had a suspected gearbox issue.

BMW squad Team KRC spent most of the session in the pits too, only making it onto the track late in the piece.

Max Hesse completed just five laps in the #89 BMW M4 on his way to a 2:06.0831s to end the session 2.2 seconds off the pace.

Results: Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour Practice 1