Manthey EMA broke Audi’s run at the top of the timesheets at the 2024 Repco Bathurst 12 Hour to head the third session of the event in the ‘Grello’ Porsche Type-992 GT3R.
The latest GT3 version of Porsche’s 911 is making its debut at Bathurst this weekend as Australian Matt Campbell is joined by Laurens Vanthoor and Turkish rising star Ayhanchan Güven.
Vanthoor set a 2m 03.689s to finish 0.465s clear of the Triple Eight Race Engineering Pro Class Mercedes-AMG GT3 to be share by Will Brown, Broc Feeney and Canadian Mikael Grenier.
Filling out the top three was a team making its debut in the form of Phantom Global Racing featuring Jaxon Evans, Joel Eriksson and Bastian Buus in its driver line-up. It was DTM race winner Eriksson setting a time 0.779s off Vanthoor’s.
Valentino Rossi’s Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 was positioned fourth with a driver line-up including Maxime Martin and new signee Raffaele Marciello, while Mercedes-AMG Team GruppeM was fifth as it celebrates 130 years of the three-pointed star. Maro Engel, Felipe Fraga and David Reynolds are due to share driving duties.
The second Triple Eight Race Engineering Mercedes-AMG driven by Jamie Whincup, Jordan Love and Prince Jefri Ibrahim was sixth ahead of the lead Audi of reigning Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Powered by AWS series winner Liam Talbot for Wash It/Jamec Racing, with Christopher Hasse sharing the duties during the session.
Harry King, Alessio Picariello and Yasser Shahin’s Manthey EMA Porsche was eighth from Brad Schumacher, who enjoyed some more mileage in the KFC/Jamec Racing Audi after an interrupted run in second practice as Markus Winkelhock also took the wheel.
Rounding out the top 10 was the sole Lamborghini in the field of Wall Racing shared by Tony D’Alberto, David Wall, Grant Denyer and owner Adrian Deitz. It marks the debut of the new Evo version of the Huracan GT3 in Australia.
At the start of the session a select few were treated to a thrilling ride as part of the Repco Circuit Safari as the world’s leading GT marques zoomed past.
MRA Motorsport’s MARC II led Invitational Class and Mark Griffith’s Mercedes-AMG continued to hold sway in GT4.
A Bronze Driver Only practice session will conclude the day commencing at 4:10pm AEDT.