Van Gisbergen overcomes penalty to win Bathurst 6 Hour

Shane van Gisbergen has overcome a five-second time penalty to take victory in the 2021 Hi-Tec Oils Bathurst 6 Hour for himself, Shane Smollen, and Rob Rubis.

With the penalty to be added to the #97 Prestige Connex BMW M4’s race time for a restart breach, van Gisbergen had to try and get far enough ahead of the chasing pack in a race littered with Safety Cars.

In the end, he took the chequered flag 12.8557s clear of the #1 Bruce Lynton BM Service BMW M3 after 120 laps, making him the second person in history to win the Bathurst 1000, Bathurst 12 Hour, and Bathurst 6 Hour.

For Tim Leahey and Beric Lynton, a runner-up finish by the official margin of 7.8557s represented a second podium in as many editions of the production car enduro after they won in 2019.

Sherrin Racing rounded out the podium courtesy of David Russell and Grant Sherrin in the #27 BMW M4, while Tim Slade and Bradley Carr combined for fourth in the #8 Car Mods Australia BMW M3 which suffered a litany of problems throughout the weekend.

The latest of those, however, might well have cost them a win given Slade had to pit from the lead at the end of a restart lap with just over an hour to go due to a second tyre drama of the day.

Fifth outright and first in Class A2 went to the #95 Miedecke Motor Group Ford Mustang of Brodie Kostecki, George Miedecke, and Paul Morris.

The latter finished the race due to the former experiencing illness from fumes and, as van Gisbergen did, had to put more than five seconds between himself and the following car in order to hold on to class honours in the face of a time penalty.

It was the #1 BMW M3 which looked well-placed when the race restarted for a seventh time with around two-and-a-half hours remaining.

Lynton held sixth spot while Sherrin was 10th in the #27 BMW and van Gisbergen 11th in the #97 BMW, which also comes out of the Bruce Lynton stable.

The latter of those two were each given another position when Carr followed the Safety Car into the lane, before van Gisbergen picked off the #27 BMW and another four cars in the next four laps.

When an eighth Safety Car came on Lap 71, in the 218th minute, Lynton inherited the lead and van Gisbergen second position, while Sherrin was seventh, with each of those three cars having completed five pit stops out of a compulsory six for Class X.

In ninth sat Kostecki in the #95 Mustang, with all of its four compulsory pit stops seemingly done, while Slade was 17th in the #8 BMW (Class X).

One lapped car protected Lynton for the Lap 73 restart but van Gisbergen cleared it before they reached Hell Corner and all but wiped out the roughly 1.7s deficit before they got back to pit straight.

He made the move at The Chase on Lap 74 and was 0.9s up at the end of the next lap, by which time Sherrin had made his way to third, albeit more than 15 seconds behind Car #97.

Van Gisbergen was 1.2s clear when the ninth Safety Car was called on Lap 76, due to Graeme Muir burying the #18 HSV (Class A2) at The Chase.

Lynton pitted from second position and Kostecki from sixth during the neutralisation which spilt into the fifth hour of proceedings.

Under Safety Car, the top three was van Gisbergen, Sherrin, and Tony Alford (#49 Racer Ford Mustang, Class A2), with Slade sixth, Leahey 11th in the #1 BMW, and Morris 14th.

Van Gisbergen had three lapped cars behind him for the Lap 81 restart and was 10 seconds ahead of Sherrin once the latter had cleared them by the end of the lap.

Slade passed Sherrin at Forrest’s Elbow on Lap 82 while Leahey was third when he went underneath Sherrin at Murray’s Corner on Lap 89.

Van Gisbergen had a 23-second advantage at the time of the next Safety Car, on Lap 93, to recover a lower class car which had stopped at The Esses.

All of the contenders pitted but Slade managed to jump van Gisbergen in the lane given it was the eighth pit stop for Car #8.

Slade therefore led the field to another green flag on Lap 96, but was straight back into the pits due to a second tyre drama of the day and dropped out of the outright top 10.

Once again, van Gisbergen built a lead, but the eight-second margin was wiped out by the 11th Safety Car of the race on Lap 100 due to one car stopping at The Chase and another hitting the wall at Reid Park.

Behind van Gisbergen sat Leahey, then Russell and Morris, with Slade last on the lead lap in 12th position.

What would turn out to be the last restart came with around 40 minutes in the contest remaining, and van Gisbergen immediately rolled out back-to-back fastest laps to go 2.5s clear of Leahey.

He lost margin in traffic but surpassed the magic five-second marker on Lap 109, at which point there was around 22 minutes remaining plus one lap more.

Van Gisbergen continued to build the lead and it was around 10 seconds when Leahey very nearly slid into the wall as he descended towards Forrest’s Elbow on Lap 113, which allowed Russell to close right up on Car #1.

Russell, however, fell back again due to traffic and there would be no change to the podium placings in the seven laps which remained.

It was a different story behind them, as Slade sliced through the field to be fifth outright within three laps after the restart.

When he came up behind Morris on Lap 108, ‘The Dude’ chose to sidestep him on the run towards Reid Park, presumably with an eye on the class battle as the #25 Greentech Gold Coast Ford Mustang of Coleby Cowham and Lindsay Kearns loomed behind.

Slade faced a deficit of over 22 seconds to Russell at the time, and that gap was much the same when they took the chequered flag.

Morris had over eight seconds between himself and the following Mustang after the 120th and final lap, meaning he had done enough to win his class and consign Cowham/Kearns to second in the A2 race.

Class A1 honours went to Michael Sheargold/Brett Hobson/Ollie Shannon in the #45 Ram Motorsport/GWR Mercedes-AMG A45 in seventh outright.

Rounding out the outright top 10 were the #49 Racer Industries Ford Mustang of Tony Alford/Kyle Alford (Class A2), the #6 Oneworld Charters Mercedes-AMG A45 of Rod Salmon/Steve McLaughlan/Neale Muston (Class A1), and the #19 Shockwave Signs Mitsubishi Lancer Evo of Jimmy Vernon/Mark Griffith (Class A1).

Results: Race