Bathurst: GruppeM ends Friday on top after early FP4 finish
Raffaele Marciello lowered Friday’s practice benchmark in the day’s fourth and final session at Mount Panorama where a big accident and subsequent barrier damage resulted in only half of the scheduled 40 minutes being completed.
Keith Kassulke escaped serious injury when his MARC Cars Australia Mustang crashed heavily and rolled over at The Chase. However, the significant impact meant Race Control opted to call the session instead of hastily repairing the safety barriers.
That left GruppeM Racing’s Mercedes-AMG on top of the timesheets thanks to Marciello’s 2m03.9958s. That was a tenth-and-a-half quicker than SunEnergy1’s Luca Stolz went moments later and 0.09s faster than Chaz Mostert lapped in the day’s opening session.
The Manthey EMA Porsche made it three Intercontinental GT Challenge Powered by Pirelli entries in the top-three while the sole Pro class Audi rounded out the first four.
IGTC’s other registered manufacturer, BMW, finished ninth and 12th, while the best of the Independent Cup entrants – Grove Racing – was one place further back.
Bathurst 12 Hour organisers have confirmed that both of Saturday morning’s hour-long practice sessions will now be covered in sound and vision. The first of them begins at 08:35 AEDT (GMT +11).
