COVID-19 caused organisers to rethink their approach to the Bathurst 12 Hour.
After a one-year hiatus, the event returned in 2022 with Pro-Am as the headline act. Travel restrictions largely precluded the top international GT3 teams from competing.
The 2022 event featured just one non-Australian entry – a stark contrast from the 2020 race that had 39 cars, of which almost half were international entrants.
“Factory teams and drivers usually make the headlines, but the fact is amateurs and the Pro-Am class are the bedrock of global GT racing,” said SRO boss Stephane Ratel in 2022.
“There are also few, if any, races of Bathurst’s international stature where Pro-Am crews are the stars of the show.
“But that won’t be the case in May when some of the world’s best amateurs have a chance to win one of motorsport’s great endurance events.
“It feels like a genuine throwback to previous 12 Hours and GT racing generally of old.”
Grove’s call for a class shake-up comes off the back of the smallest Bathurst 12 Hour grid since COVID-19.
The Bathurst 12 Hour has not yet bounced back to pre-COVID grid numbers. This year’s event had just 22 cars, of which 18 were GT3 entries.
Grove reckons Bathurst 12 Hour organisers could simplify the class structure to Pro and Pro-Am and remove the lower Silver Cup and Bronze Cup classes.
He also believes in making the race GT3-only, noting the lack of non-GT3 cars competing this year.
In effect, he reckons the Bathurst 12 Hour would elevate its stature on the GT3 stage as a must for international teams.
This year’s Intercontinental GT Challenge features five events at Bathurst, the Nurburgring, Spa-Francorchamps, Suzuka, and Indianapolis. Only the Bathurst 12 Hour and the Nurburgring 24 are multi-class.
“I look back at a lot of the stuff we do overseas. If you look at the Spa 24 Hours, it’s all GT3 cars. For me, personally, I’d like to just see two classes,” Grove told Speedcafe.
“I’d like to see a Pro class and a Pro-Am class, and then you get the GT cars there and then everybody has an ability to push on and bring some professional drivers over.
“But you know, in this country, GT racing is really driven by the business guys, by the Am guys. They’re the ones that are funding the process, so I think that would be good.
“There were potentially too many categories [at Bathurst this year]. Moving forward to have just those two, it would be a premier race.
“In 2020, we won the Pro-Am class up there. There was only Pro and Pro-am [and Silver]. I just think it works.
“It’s really fast through the top. In a GT3 car, you really rely on the aero, which is a bit different.
“They’re quite rigid cars, where Supercars are quite soft, so there’s not much room for error up there at those speeds.
“I think sometimes, potentially as the cars are getting faster, that potentially to be an all-GT3 race would be really good.”
Bathurst 12 Hour GT3 entries by year
- 2011 – 9
- 2012 – 9
- 2013 – 18
- 2014 – 15
- 2015 – 28
- 2016 – 22
- 2017 – 33
- 2018 – 28
- 2019 – 28
- 2020 – 34
- 2021 – Not held due to COVID-19
- 2022 – 15
- 2023 – 22
- 2024 – 19
- 2025 – 18
There has been a bit of head-scratching in the wake of this year’s relatively lacklustre turnout of GT3 entries.
GT3 racing has grown globally with WEC and IMSA adopting the platform in the wake of the factory GTE formula being axed.
Questions have been asked about the Bathurst 12 Hour and its date relative to events like the Daytona 24 and the Asian Le Mans Series.
Event organisers experimented with the date in 2024 – moving it from early February to mid-February – with no noticeable GT3 grid fluctuation.
Grove reckons the early February date isn’t ideal.
“The date’s great for us in Australia, but I don’t think it’s that great overseas,” he explained.
“You’ve got Asian Le Mans pretty well at the same time and a lot of teams want to do that and don’t want to come over.
“In Australia, we’re fine because we’re here and it’s summer and it’s good for the cars that are here, but to try and get the internationals back, it would be good to look at all the other programs and look at what they’re doing and seeing if there’s a change in date that might help them come.
“The cars are really expensive and they’re very expensive to run, so it’s a long way to Australia as we know, so I just think bringing the car over and trying to get it back — I mean, it’s a week after Daytona, so you get a lot of drivers that have got to come from there.
“To try and get another car and be running a second car to come here and not go to Daytona, Dubai, around the same time, so that creates issues. Asian Le Mans creates issues, so I think they just need to look at where they can.
“They’ve got their own commercial issues and reasons for having the race when they do.”
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