12H Bathurst: 2nd place for R-Motorsport 🎥
KNAPPED At the opening round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge in Australia, R-Motorsport from St. Gallen seemed to be heading for victory with its Aston Martin GT3. The final attack by a Porsche driver prevented this. Dirk Werner (left) and Matt Campbell celebrate as winners. To the right, the three drivers from R-Motorsport. The 12 Hours of Bathurst on the Mount [...]
Dirk Werner (left) and Matt Campbell celebrate as winners. To the right, the three drivers from R-Motorsport.
The 12 Hours of Bathurst on the Mount Panorama hill-and-dale circuit marked the start of the Intercontinental GT Challenge for GT3 sports cars. The race started at 5:45 a.m. on Sunday morning, before daybreak.
Decision on the last meters
The Aston Martin Vantage V12 of Marvin Kirchhöfer, Jake Dennis and Matthieu Vaxiviere, entered for the last time by R-Motorsport from St. Gallen, was always in the leading group and led comfortably in the final hour. Around 30 minutes before the end of the race, the safety car came onto the track to safely recover a stranded car. As a result, Jake Dennis lost the advantage over his pursuers.
The final ten minutes proved difficult as the Aston Martin, unlike Matt Campbell's advancing Porsche, had worn tires and brakes. The Briton made life difficult for his pursuer until the Australian squeezed past Dennis with a borderline overtaking maneuver to take the win.
The decisive maneuver is shown again in this special video sequence:
CAMPBELL WOW 👊
An unbelievable move for the race LEAD with just eight minutes to go.#B12HR pic.twitter.com/g6VXqsw1o2
- Bathurst 12 Hour (@Bathurst12hour) February 3, 2019
Matt Campbell raced for Fach Auto Tech in the Supercup two years ago and is now an official Porsche Young Professional. His teammates on the 911 GT3 R from Earl Bamber Motorsport were Porsche works driver Dirk Werner and Norwegian Dennis Olsen. For Earl Bamber's team, with which Alex Fach won the Supercup in 2014, it was the biggest victory to date and also the first at Bathurst for the Porsche brand.
Won, not lost
The second place is also a nice success for R-Motorsport and Aston Martin St. Gallen.
Team boss Dr. Florian Kamelger: "We won second place overall and didn't lose the race. Our team put in a fantastic performance under the difficult conditions of being relegated from pole position to twelfth on the grid and a difficult early phase. The strategy was perfect and the drivers got everything out of our Aston Martin."
Bänziger accident
With the Vantage V12 GT3 entered in the Pro/Am category, team co-owner Andreas Bänziger suffered an accident on the track that damaged the front of the car. After examinations at the Medical Centre, the Swiss was declared fit. After less than five hours of repairs, the car was sent back into the race and ultimately this finish was also celebrated, although the team was not included in the classification due to the delay.
