Campbell clinches Bathurst 12 Hour win for Manthey EMA Porsche

On a day when the #912 Porsche took two drive-throughs, the first taken by mistake under Safety Car, and then looked compromised on strategy, Campbell emerged in a big lead for the run home.

A relatively late Safety Car made matters interesting again but the Queenslander was unflappable as he delivered victory for himself along with co-drivers Ayhancan Guven and Laurens Vanthoor.

After winning the last two Bathurst 12 Hours, the SunEnergy1 team finished second, Jules Gounon taking the chequered flag 2.6336s in arrears after 275 laps in the #75 Mercedes-AMG which he shared with Luca Stolz and Kenny Habul.

Gounon had to survive a late send from Jaxon Evans but it was Christopher Haase who snatched third in the end in the #22 Melbourne Performance Centre Audi which was also piloted by Kelvin van der Linde and Liam Talbot.

The #13 Phantom Global Racing Porsche of Evans/Joel Eriksson/Bastian Buus finished fourth in the end, from the #46 Team WRT BMW of Maxime Martin/Raffaele Marciello/Valentino Rossi.

Sixth was the #888 Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes-AMG of Broc Feeney/Will Brown/Mikael Grenier, from the #222 Scott Taylor Motorsport Mercedes-AMG of Cam Waters/Thomas Randle/Craig Lowndes and the #130 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG of Maro Engel/Felipe Fraga/David Reynolds in eighth, last of those on the lead lap.

Manthey EMA did the double with Pro-Am honours going to the #911 Porsche of Alessio Picariello/Harry King/Yasser Shahin in ninth outright.

The Pro-Am runner-up was the #27 Heart of Racing/SPS Mercedes-AMG of Alex Riberas/Ross Gunn/Ian James, which was set back by a drive-through penalty incurred during the final restart.

A wounded #88 Triple Eight JMR Mercedes-AMG of Jamie Whincup/Jordan Love/Prince Jefri Ibrahim finished third in Pro-Am and 11th outright at just under two laps down.

Silver class victory went to the #93 Wall Racing Lamborghini steered by Tony D’Alberto/David Wall/Grant Denyer/Adrian Deitz in 12th outright with 273 laps completed, GT4 was won by the #19 Nineteen Corp Mercedes-AMG GT4 driven to 17th outright for 253 laps by Mark Griffith/Adam Christoudolou/Daniel Bilski, and Invitational by the #20 T2 Racing IRC with Cedric Sbirrazzouli/Daniel Jilesen/Adam Hargraves 19th outright having completed 245 laps.

The Invitational class Vortex caused the final Safety Car, from which the race went green again with 30 minutes plus one lap to go.

Campbell had led from Gounon, Evans, Martin, Haase, Waters, Grenier, and Engel, with Pro-Am leader Whincup a lap down in ninth, from Gunn and Picariello.

Campbell took the restart with a lead of 0.38s at the start of Lap 260, which became 1.83s by the end of it, then 2.81s after another lap.

Meanwhile, the #27 Mercedes-AMG was handed a drive-through for weaving after the Safety Car lights had gone out, taking Gunn out of the battle for Pro-Am honours just as he passed Whincup.

The 2017 outright Bathurst 12 Hour winner was struggling with a flailing splitter and Picariello put the #911 Porsche into the effective Pro-Am lead when he overtook Car #88 on their 261st lap, given Gunn had yet to take the PLP.

Meanwhile, up the front, Campbell stretched his lead to almost three seconds before Gounon started to respond.

However, the Frenchman caught a GT4 at the worst possible spot on Lap 266 and not only did the pack behind him tighten up, all the way back to Grenier in seventh, his deficit to Campbell blew out to six seconds by the time he cleared the McLaren Artura at Forrest’s Elbow.

On Lap 270, Evans lunged at Gounon at The Chase but was held at bay, incentivising Martin to attack the #13 Porsche at Murray’s Corner.

He got held wide and then Haase passed both the #46 BMW and Evans, a move which he only completed around the corner and up the road at Griffins Bend.

Meanwhile, Gunn had at least recovered second place in the Pro-Am class when he passed the wounded #88 Mercedes-AMG for 10th outright.

At the front, Campbell’s lead dwindled, but he was clearly managing the gap to the finish, where he and Porsche became two-time Bathurst 12 Hour winners, weeks after their triumph in the 24 Hours of Daytona in a Penske-run 963 hypercar.

Earlier, rain and key penalties during the seventh to ninth hours had upended the race several times and strategically offset some of the contenders.

However, a Full Course Yellow on Lap 210 for debris, gifted STM the opportunity to pit and keep the lead.

When the 11th restart came on Lap 212, Randle led by 11.80s over Guven in a #912 Porsche thought to be strategically compromised given it was further into its stint than its key rivals in the positions just behind, with stints capped at 32 laps in normal dry conditions and 33 otherwise.

The #77 Craft-Bamboo Mercedes-AMG was a few seconds behind in third in the hands of Maximilian Goetz, from the #22 Audi (Kelvin van der Linde), the #75 Mercedes-AMG (Stolz), the #13 Porsche (Buus), the #46 BMW (Marciello), the #2 MPC Audi (Markus Winkelhock), the #130 Mercedes-AMG, the Pro-Am #9 MPC Audi (Marc Cini), and a #888 Mercedes-AMG (Feeney) apparently carrying damage.

Said damage was a result of recently being hit by the GruppeM Mercedes-AMG, which had already served its penalty.

There had also been a question mark over the new race leaders given the Vortex had not long spun into the wall exiting The Dipper, but that incident was reviewed and it was determined Randle had not made contact despite being close behind.

Another problem then cropped up for the #222 Mercedes-AMG, with STM having kept warm wets as the rain continued to fall instead of switching to new but cold rubber, for multiple stints in a row.

That paid off earlier but the payback was coming when Guven reeled in Randle, and then blazed past as they ran down Conrod Straight on Lap 218.

The move was not necessarily an effective lead change, but then attention turned to third-placed Goetz, who was about eight seconds behind in the #77 Mercedes-AMG.

Goetz had all but eliminated that gap on Lap 221, at which point he pitted and handed over to Daniel Juncadella to resume in seventh.

However, the #77 and #130 Mercedes-AMGs were then each issued a drive-through penalty for breaching the maximum stint length by several laps.

Worse was to come when Juncadella smacked the wall at ‘The Tree’ and damaged Car #77 anyway.

Reynolds, meanwhile, had not long been passed by Feeney for seventh when he took Car #130’s penalty, rejoining still in eighth but off the lead lap.

Guven was 11.75s up on the #13 Phantom Global Porsche when the Turk pitted from the lead on Lap 228, with just under two hours remaining, and rejoined fifth.

Randle was over nine seconds back in second place and had about four-and-a-half on Stolz, with both those cars expected to only stop one more time.

Stolz had all but erased that margin by the end of Lap 232, while Buus was more than 15 seconds up the road in the #13 Porsche.

Buus pitted from the lead on Lap 236, with just over an hour-and-a-half to go, and was followed in by Randle from about 19 seconds back and Marciello from fourth position.

Buus rejoined second, just ahead of Guven, but could not keep him at bay on cold wet tyres, with #912 rounding up #13 at The Cutting.

Stolz pitted a lap later and the penultimate stint was set up with Guven leading by five seconds from Buus, with Stolz 19 seconds back from the lead in third position, and Cam Waters a distant fourth in the #222 Mercedes-AMG.

The rain stopped but the track remained too wet for slicks until well into the 11th hour.

Even then, for all of the key runners, it was a waiting game to make what would be final pit stops.

WRT was first to go, with Raffaele Marciello handing over the #46 BMW to Maxime Martin at the end of Lap 249, in the 657th minute.

Stolz pitted on Lap 251 at the start of the 12th hour and Jules Gounon took over the #75 Mercedes-AMG, while Haase stayed in the #22 Audi.

The latter got back out still in fourth but, on cold tyres, was picked off by Martin on the run to The Cutting.

Buus was 18 seconds from the lead when he pitted from second place on Lap 252 and Evans hopped back into the #13 Porsche for the run home.

Manthey EMA responded by bringing Guven in a lap later and installing Campbell for the final stint.

The Queenslander was still 13 seconds to the good once his tyres came up to temp.

However, most of what was still a dozen-second lead would be lost on Lap 256 when a Safety Car was called after the Invitational class Vortex got stuck on the apex of Griffins Bend due to a bungled flick-turn.

The front-runners all stayed out, although Triple Eight took the opportunity to again patch up the damaged front splitter on the #88 Mercedes-AMG, before the sprint to the finish began.

The 2024 Intercontinental GT Challenge continues with the 24H Nurburgring on May 30-June 2.

Results: Race, 2024 Bathurst 12 Hour