Pure racing: Overtaking class on Mount Panorama.

Chris Walsham/Facebook

Some of the best racing you never hear anything about.

Fast, new cars are glamorous and exciting but even Saint Ayrton said the best, purest racing he ever did was as an amateur.

So you probably seen Sabine "Queen of the Ring" Schmitz passing a spectacular number of cars in a VLN race  before.   Amazing stuff but the (hopefully) future Top Gear host is a full time professional,  driving the latest model from Porsche, prepared by a very experienced team, on a track she literally grew up driving on.

With that in mind,  I give you Joseph Lethal, killing it at a support race for the 2016 Bathurst 12 hours.    Lenthall built and prepared his first gen RX7 and this was his first time racing on the mountain course!
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Couple of things jump out:  

Very smooth, cool driving.

Love the dog leg box and how the engine seemingly revs to 4 million rpm.

That car is hooked up.

Damn, the track is narrow,  makes passing at the Nurburgring seem simple.

So why did Joseph start 49th anyway ?  

“Last weekend, I travelled to Bathurst to race at Mount Panorama for the first time. After walking the track and being told where not to stick it into the fence, I came back to a prepared car thanks to my crew.

“Practice was great and we finished P14 out of a 61- car field. Qualifying was also good, with another P14 and some time left in the car.

“I got a woeful start in race 1 and dropped back to about 18th. After making my way past a few cars, the alternator belt flicked off and the car stopped coming out of turn 3. Unfortunately, between myself and the marshals, we then badly bent the front of the car while trying to load it on the truck.

“Enter my crew again, who through a drill, hammer, cable ties and race tape straightened the front and got the car ready for Race 2. I started 49th and around the last corner; eventually I finished 15th with a straight and running car.

“I can now say that I have raced my Mazda at Bathurst and it was bloody fantastic.”

Pure racing.

Enjoy it

(tx to Gordon Mellis and Autoaction.com.au)

..and the car just explodes into a 1000 pieces

2015 Supercheap Bathurst 1000 qualifying,  defending champion Chaz Mostert turns in just a touch too early in the downhill messes section at Mount Panorama...

It does not end well for his Prodrive Ford Falcon and for Mostert who had to be taken away by ambulance after complaining of pain in his legs.  ON the onboard you can clearly see his left leg is broken after impacting the shifter.  Regulators might want to have a look at how seats are installed and designed.

No word on the two marshalls who dove for their lives and the Ford smashed into the top of their post yet.  Hope they are OK,  hope Bathurst will have a look at the fence design there.

Animals and race tracks don't mix, revisited.

It's never popular when you criticize track safety, people got mad when we pointed out shocking safety lapses at Le Mans for example and people got upset when, at the start of the Bathurst 12 Hr,  I pointed out on twitter that there is no excuse for animals crossing a race track.

In fact, there are a couple other seemingly obvious yet easily improvable safety issues at Mount Panorama, the unprotected concrete walls at the top of the course screaming for some Tecpro barriers come to mind but, lets just stick to animals.

All too often, criticism of safety is met with a refrains along the lines of "that's the way it is, you can't do anything about it" and "racing is supposed to be dangerous".

Bathurst 12 hour organizers have been trying to do  something about the kangaroo issue.   Last year they proposed culling the skippies but that met with the displeasure of animal lovers and those who think 180 pound marsupials are a quaint feature of the Mount Panorama circuit.  Safe to say most of those complaining are not racers.

This year's plan involved snipers,  because involving high powered rifles on a circuit where fans strategically  bury beer  to circumvent a 24 per person limit, well,  what could possibly go wrong?

Most tracks have fencing.  A novel idea, I know and one that is usually unpopular with organizers because it costs money.    Curiously though organizers are usually not shy about fences when it comes to keeping non paying fans from getting a glimpse of the action.

Fences have the added advantage of keeping cars out of the woods and any flying bits out of the spectator stands and it's fair to the kangaroos.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say Anthony Gilbertson is in the "build a fence camp" after smashing into a kangaroo at 220 km/h. with his BMW in the opening phases of this year's Bathurst 12 Hour.

It's not pretty,

(hat tip to Dominic Carey for finding the clip)

2015 Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour live stream

All manner of amazing racing (and kangaroo dodging) from Mount Panorama today.  

Check out all the action from the 2015 Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hours and supporting races live  HERE.      

Note that the player acts as a DVR so if you missed it, just "rewind" and enjoy!

Ferrari conquers the Mountain

Australian V8Supercar  ace Craig Lawndes gave Ferrari their first ever win on Mount Panorama as he brought home the Maranello Motorsport 458 GT3 across the line just 0,4 seconds ahead of the HTP Motorsport Mercedes SLS driven by Max Buhk.  

It was an an amazing end to the 2014 Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 hour. which came down to a restart with just 12 minutes left.

The Ferrari,  co driven by Mika Salo, Peter Edwards and John Bowe, had the edge on the twisty bits while the chasing Mercedes was clearly faster on the long straight and under braking, thanks to an earlier brake pad change.   Traffic played a part but Lowndes experience on the mountain track was crucial, the Aussie using all the track but in a very fair way.

“Thirty minutes to go in the race and we had about a 25s lead over the McLaren, it was closing fast, it must have been having problems. Then the Mercedes closed the gap really quick, the safety car came out and it diminished any gap we would have had. 
I knew the Merc was always going to be quick in a straight line, and these guys have been telling me all week the Ferrari is generally quick across the top and that is a section I really enjoy. I had to push hard to get a gap, to get a car and half for a bit of a buffer zone. I didn’t know if it was going to be enough"    Said Lawndes after the race

“With two or three laps to go, went down the outside into turn two, and was able to hold the inside line and get a gap, but of course, that diminished with some back markers. We didn’t change brakes, it was fading but it was ok. 
Had to give it a couple of pumps going into the Chase, very thankful the time ran out and we didn’t have to do another lap. I was doing my best, running on the inside lines, making the Merc go around the long way, thankfully we had enough.”

The team dedicated the win to Allan Simonsen, who drove for Maranello Motorsport in past editions of the 12 Hour.

Check out the final minutes in this clip with commentary from Radio LeMans' legendary John Hindhaugh.  How does he do it?



Official results

Shane Van Gisbergen is one crazy motha....I mean, Kiwi

New Zealand's Shane Van Ginsbergen may swapped his usual V8 Supercar for a Mclaren MP4 12 GT3 at the Bathurst 12 Hours but he brought some of the door banging antics with him.

About half way though the race and the Mclaren caught and passed the leading Erebus Mercedes of Bernd Schneider for the lead ahead of a Mclaren pit stop.

"Catching Schneider was awesome", said Van Ginsbergen afterwards " Seeing his big German head bobbing around and looking in the mirror was a pretty cool feeling"

Still fighting the duo come upon Mika Salo on his out lap in the Ferrari 458.

Van Ginsbergen tries what has to be the lowest percentage move ever and amazingly does not crash along with Salo and Schneider.   The looks from Van Ginsbergen's teammates are priceless.

Of course, as any good racer would, Van Hinsbergen put the plane squarely in Salo's camp.   "I gave him the international symbol of hello down the straight,  he definitively saw me and cut me off"

Ferrari smashes lap record at Mount Panorama... then gets pipped by Mercedes!

UPDATE:  despite predictions the higher temperatures in the final session would not produce faster times, German V8 Supercar driver Maro Engel pipped Salo by 0.0835 sec setting a time of 2:03.8586.   Sorry Ferrari!

Mika Salo driving the #88 Maranello Motorsport Ferrari 458 Italia set a new outright lap record at the famed Mount Panorama circuit in Australia.

"“It was a clear lap from the traffic but it wasn’t a clean lap, there were a few mistakes from me" said Salo who set the 2:03.9421 time in the final minutes of the first qualifying session.  The previous  outright lap record was set by an F3 car in 2012 with a 2:04.61.  Jenson Button lapped Mt Panorama in 1:48 with an F1 Mclaren but that was in a demo run and not counted.

Behind the Finn, who will share the car with V8 Supercar ace Craig Lawndes, John Bowe and Peter Edwards, the Mercedes SLS of defending champions from Erebus Motorsport, followed by a Nissan GTR, a Mclaren MP4-12c and and Audi R8 Ultra. You could not have a better challenge, all the top GT3 cars in the world having at it on the mountain.

For Salo and Maranello Motorsport and emotional moment when they were awarded the first ever Allan Simonsen trophy, awarded to the pole sitters in honor of the Danish driver killed at Le Mans in 2013. Simonsen had raced for Maranello Motorsport and Salo told the press ahead of the session how he had wanted to set a mark for his friend.

“We need to keep the trophy for Allan Simonsen. He would have been on the pole anyway, so it’s good to get it for him”

Get ready for 12 hours on the Mountain

Defending champion Berndt Schneider will be back in the Erebus Motorsport SLS GT3 for the 2014 Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 hours is this coming this week end.  

Live steaming will be available on the Bathurst 12 hour official site HERE

Ute Mountain

Australians pioneered on-board camera technology so you expect some great angles to catch all the pushing an shoving amongst the (insert Joe Pesci's voice in My Cousin Vinny) ...utes

Masters on the Mountain

Jim Richards in his Ford Falcom Sprint across the top of the mountain in the Muscle Car Masters race at Mount Panorama, Bathurst Photo: Sean Neil/Flickr

Fresh from Mount Panorama, Camaros and Monaros and Falcons and...Carreras??

Bathurst 12 Hour: Ferrari too fast, gets penalized for it.

The Maranello Motorsport Ferrari 458 had its best time taken away and 50 kilos of ballast added after setting a time faster than minimum time benchmark while qualifying for the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour. Perhaps someone Australian can explain to us how that works and why a delta time system is used rather than  straight fastest time.

Jenson Button smokes Mt. Panorama

In one of those ultimately meaningless but still awesome events, Mclaren ran their F1 car on the famed Bathurst/Mt. Panorama track today.
What makes this cool is it gives a tangible measure of a Formula 1 cars performance: presumably driving well within himself, Jenson Button pulled off an unofficial 1:48 sec lap. Compare that with the already blistering fast qualifying times for the V8 Supercars driving 11/10th and tuned specifically for the track, they group about the 2:07 mark. Now that's impressive.

I'm sure a nice polished video will be released soon, in the meantime, youtube offers some fan clips (after the jump) and a news report





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2010 Supercheap Bathurst 1000

The annual dodging of the kangaroos on Mt. Panorama. Enjoy. Thanks to Ruben D'Arco for the video tips!



Start and huge crash on the fastest part of the track



After the Jump: laps 1 to 52 and more...


race highlights



Laps 1 to 52



Some of the best camera coverage in all of motorsport



RACE REPORT on Motorsport.com

2009 Bathurst 1000 Highlights

300 km/h side by side on a track that is maybe 3 cars wide. About 12 minutes of highlights including the restart for the final 3 laps. Time well spent.




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Thunder on the Mountain, the 2009 Bathurst 1000 Shootout.

The Bathurst 1000, one of the world's most incredible races. Australian V8 Supercars are a mix of golden era DTM and what NASCAR could be if it wasn't afraid to turn right more often. The Mount Panorama circuit is unique and has got to be one of the scariest tracks on the planet. These guys are all over it with 100% commitment, millimiters from the concrete walls, it's just amazing.

All of this makes for a great show and the way the Australians cover this race is amazing. Australian TV was the first to incorporate onboard cameras and have developed and exported the technology ever since, they are masters at it. A motorhead's delight they have cameras everywhere, even on the car's suspensions, other racing series should study and learn.

So here is the complete top ten qualifying shootout divided by driver and continued after the jump.