Ferrari team takes Bathurst 12 Hour victory

One strategy call decided the winner of the 2017 Bathurst 12 Hour race.

Before their final pit stops both Jamie Whincup and Shane van Gisbergen faced decision. Whincup took tires in his final stop; van Gisbergen did not, choosing to keep the lead of the race.

Whincup took two laps to erase a 2s lead, sweeping alongside SVG's Mercedes AMG GT3 on Conrod Straight. Van Gisbergen forced him onto the grass at 170mph, but the Ferrari seized the lead and kept it, to win his first-ever GT race.

It may be worth acknowledging that Whincup and van Gisbergen are teammates in their "day jobs" with the Red Bull Holden Supercars team...

The only Ferrari in the race was the fastest car in the race, and Vilander was the fastest driver.

In the end it didn't matter. SVG earned a drive-through penalty for hitting a lapped Porsche with 20 minutes to go. Before he could serve it,

van Gisbergen crashed on the Mountain and retired

.

Second place fell to a Porsche. Then Marc Lieb had to serve an early penalty for speeding in the pitlane – while he was fighting for the lead. The Competition Motorsports Porsche was relatively unfancied before the race but with Lieb and Pat Long joining brilliant Aussie Matt Campbell and car owner David Calvert-Jones, it certainly over-delivered in the race.

Their hopes of a win ended when Long and Engel clashed under brakes, sending the Benz off the track and Long into the pitlane to serve a drive-through penalty. Campbell then hit a lapped car with 70 minutes remaining, earning another penalty, and dropping them to third, which became second after van Gisbergen's crash.

The other contender was the brand-new Bentley of Guy Smith, Steven Kane and Oliver Jarvis. So new was the Continental that there was not even time for a shakedown before making the trip Down Under. They stayed out of most of the trouble and the result was a hard-earned third place – after starting 22nd.

One of the talking points was the number of penalties that drivers were hit with in the first half of the race. Whincup's co-driver Toni Vilander received a drive-through penalty after weaving excessively on a restart; SVG's co-driver Craig Baird received one for tapping the Vilander Ferrari, while Craig Lowndes was at the wheel, into a sand trap while fighting for the lead.

The other fancied car, in spite of starting from the pitlane, also got one. It was a great effort from the Tekno McLaren. Rob Bell slowed massively with what appeared to be an engine fire, the driver disobeying radio orders to park the car and retire it. The car lost four laps, and the drivers managed to recover three of them – before getting a pitlane penalty in the final hour. They finished fourth.

Fifth was John Martin/Liam Talbot/Davashen Padayachee in the Walkinshaw Racing Porsche, a great effort to take out the "Amateur" category with two "Am" drivers.

None of the BMWs had much to say in the battle for the win. Chaz Mostert in the MARC Cars privateers M6 took and early lead, but one of his co-drivers struck trouble. Steven Richards's M6 had steering pump problems, the sister entry, driven by three retired Supercar drivers and works BMW pilot Timo Glock, ran inside the top six until one of the veterans, Russell Ingall, hit a wall at the top of the Mountain.

There were a number of hard-luck stories. Both works Nissans had gearbox problems, setting them back in the field, even if one of them was as fast as anything on the track in the final hour. Jann Mardenborough brought NISMO's No. 24 GT-R GT3 (above) home in ninth place.

The day was a disaster for most of the Audis, a variety of problems striking the fancied runners. The most ironic retirement was that of the well-fancied Christopher Mies/Christopher Haase/Garth Tander entry. Their R8 LMS was knocked out of contention when Mies spun and was hit by one of the MARC Ford Focuses – driven by, ironically, Tander's wife Leanne...

In Class B, David Wall – whose team was running two privateer Nissan GT-Rs – stepped into a SRM Porsche GT3 Cup car on race morning after Xavier West withdrew because of illness, to take a class win with Dean Grant and Dylan O'Keeffe.

In Class C, the battle for much of the race was between the No. 19 Porsche Cayman and the No. 48 KTM X-Bow, with the Austrian car slowed by a loose cockpit "bubble." That resulted in a win for Andy Pilgrim, Max Braams, Jorg Viebahn and Nicolaij Moller-Madsen.

Aussie teenager Will Brown made a great debut to win Class I, sharing a MARC Cars Ford Focus with Keith Kassulke and Rod Salmon.

RESULTS:

1. Toni Vilander/Jamie Whincup/Craig Lowndes Maranello Motorsport Ferrari 488 GT3 290 laps
2. Matt Campbell/Marc Lieb/Pat Long/David Calvert-Jones Competition Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R -1 lap
3. Oliver Jarvis/Steven Kane/Guy Smith Bentley Continental GT3 -1 lap
4. John Martin/Liam Talbot/Davashen Padayachee Walkinshaw Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R -1 lap
5. Alvaro Parente/Bob Bell/Come Ledogar Tekno Autosports McLaren 650S GT3 -1 lap
6. Steve Owen/Roger Lago/David Russell Lago Racing Lamborghini Hurracan GT3 -2 laps
7. Matt Halliday/Ash Samadi/Daniel Gaunt Team ASR Audi R8 LMS -2 laps -2 laps
8. 24 Florian Strauss/Jann Mardenborough/Todd Kelly Nissan Motorsport Nissan GT-R GT3 -2 laps
9. Dean Fiore/Marc Cini/Lee Holsdworth Hallmarc Audi R8 LMS -3 laps
10. Ivan Capelli/Dean Canto/Jim Manolios/Ryan Miller Trofeo Motorsport Lamborghini Hurracan GT3 -5 laps