24h Le Mans
This coming weekend, no less than three previous overall winners at the 24 Hours of Le Mans will take the start at the 2017 edition of the 12 Hours of Bathurst in Australia taking place at the gorgeous Mount Panorama circuit.
The 12 Hours of Bathurst (Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour) has become, since its creation in 2007, THE Australian race of the year in which many endurance drivers dream of participating. As only GTs are accepted, many regulars in the LM GTE Pro and Am classes at the 24 Hours of Le Mans figure on the entry list, but there are also three previous overall winners.
Guy Smith, winner at Le Mans in 2003 with Bentley, will share the wheel of a Bentley Continental GT with Oliver Jarvis, former official Audi driver in LM P1 who has reached the third step on the podium three times at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in recent years. The other two previous 24 Hours winners at the start in Australia won with Porsche, Earl Bamber in 2015 and Marc Lieb in 2016. Lieb will take the wheel of a GT for the first time since the 2015 Rolex 24 at Daytona and Bamber will be competing in the Porsche 919 Hybrid full-time in the World Endurance Championship (WEC). Lieb, defending World Endurance Champion with Romain Dumas and Neel Jani, will soon resume his activities as an engineer.
In addition to the overall winners, there are also class winners on the entry list for the 12 Hours of Bathurst, such as Jonny Kane who won in LM P2 in 2010, and two-time class winners like Darren Turner who won in 2007 and 2008 in the former LM GT1 class with Aston Martin, and Toni Vilander who claimed the top step on the podium in 2012 and 2014 in AF Corse's Ferrari 458 Italia, as well as Patrick Long who won in former classes LM GT in 2004 and LM GT2 in 2007.
If one adds participants in the 85th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the LM GTE Am class, such as the trio Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda in an Aston Martin Vantage, or Rob Bell in the TF Sport team's Aston Martin, the list gets even longer!
The start of the 12 Hours of Bathurst will be given on Sunday, February 5th at 5:45 a.m. local time, Saturday, February 4th at 6:45 p.m. in the U.K.
Photo: Marc Lieb, winner at the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans with Porsche, will participate in the 12 Hours of Bathurst for the first time.
