Audi has announced the suite of R8 drivers for this year’s Liqui Moly Bathurst 12 Hour, including a comeback to motorsport for Jonathon Webb.

There will be a total of seven vehicles from the Ingolstadt marque in the race, all being the R8 LMS GT3 evo II, with one in the Pro class and three each in Pro-Am and Silver, most of which will be run by Melbourne Performance Centre.

That includes the #74 Audi Sport Team MPC entry which will be piloted by an all-factory trio of Mattia Drudi, Christopher Haase, and Patric Niederhauser.

Audi’s announcement also confirms that PremiAir Racing’s James Golding will drive the Pro-Am #55 Schumacher Motorsport Fuchs Racing entry which Supercars’ newest team is running for Brad Schumacher himself, with Frederic Vervisch named as the factory steerer in the crew.

Also in Pro-Am, the #777 The Bend Motorsport Park Team MPC car’s line-up is comprised of Ricardo Feller, Christopher Mies, and back-to-back Australian GT champion Yasser Shahin, while the #9 Hallmarc Team MPC entry will be driven by Lee Holdsworth, Dean Fiore, and Marc Cini.

2016 Bathurst 12 Hour winner Webb will drive the #47 Supabarn Team MPC entry with David Russell, James Koundouris, and Theo Koundouris; while a PremiAir and Tekno Autosports Supercars co-driver in Dylan O’Keeffe is set to line up with Andre Fawcet and Daniel Gaunt in the #10 Myland Team IMS car.

Both of those are Silver class entries as is the #65 Team MPC Audi, pending announcement of the third driver, given only Liam Talbot and Fraser Ross have been confirmed thus far.

“For our local MPC partners, the race is a first-class sporting challenge just as it is for us,” said Chris Reinke, Head of Audi Sport customer racing.

“Already traditionally, MPC is represented at Bathurst with a strong, competitive base of customers.

“Audi Sport customer racing complements the privateer line-up with six Audi Sport drivers split across three race cars.”

Audi has won the Bathurst 12 Hour three times, most recently in 2018 with Team WRT, which is now a BMW squad and will field two M4 GT3s in this year’s race, including one to be driven by Valentino Rossi.

The event begins on Friday, February 3.

Audi drivers: 2023 Bathurst 12 Hour

* Per 2023 FIA Driver Categorisation list