Mostert Leads Opening Hour After Dramatic Bathurst Start

Photo: Gruppe C Photography/SRO

Chaz Mostert led the opening hour of the Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour following a dramatic three-wide start in the Intercontinental GT Challenge season opener.

Mostert, in the No. 26 Arise Racing GT Ferrari 296 GT3, held a 9.122-second lead over the pole-sitting No. 77 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Maxi Goetz.

Goetz was part of contact-filled first green flag lap when the German went wide in Turn 1 and let the No. 183 Jamec Racing/Team MPC Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Ricardo Feller and Maro Engel’s No. 888 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG go three-wide for the lead in pitch darkness up Mountain Straight.

Feller was the first to back off, as the No. 32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 of Augusto Farfus jumped into second behind Goetz.

Australian Supercars star Mostert, who started fifth, however, got around the Brazilian on Lap 5 for second and then took over the lead from Goetz two laps later and extended his lead through the remainder of the opening hour.

Farfus ran third at the end of the opening hour, with Feller and Engel completing the top-five after a swap of positions near the end of the hour.

The No. 75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Luca Stolz was sixth, ahead of Thomas Randle’s No. 222 Scott Taylor Motorsport Mercedes-AMG in seventh.

Raffaele Marciello ran eighth in the No. 46 WRT BMW, which was given a hardship lap last night after qualifying due to a water leak that took the car out of Pirelli Pole Battle contention.

The No. 911 Absolute Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Ayhancan Guven was ninth, with Scott Andrews out front of the Pro-Am class in tenth overall.

Ross Gunn, meanwhile, led the Bronze class in his No. 27 Heart of Racing by SPS Mercedes-AMG in 11th overall.