Bathurst 12 Hour: Porsche beats Mercedes to victory in rain-hit race

A year after Campbell and Jules Gounon fought for the win in the Bathurst 12 Hour they did it again in 2024 – through this time, the factory Porsche driver had the better of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 pilot.

In spite of going off-strategy mid-race and two drive-through penalties, Manthey EMA’s Campbell and co-drivers Vanthoor and Bathurst rookie Guven stayed in contention no matter what conditions the track and the sky threw at them. When a Safety Car prompted a 30-minute dash to the flag Campbell gapped the field to take his and Porsche’s second Bathurst win.

After a dry first half four hours of rain challenged the drivers before slick tyres reappeared for the final dash to the flag.

“This is awesome, it was a tough day,” said Campbell, who won the race in 2019.

“Hats off to everyone, we were not always running at the front. It wasn’t easy in mixed conditions. It’s phenomenal! It was a little bit of risk management as well, there was quite a bit of water off-line as well. We got there in the end.”

“Pretty amazing, I have been waiting for this and dreaming of this one for a while!,” said Belgian Vanthoor, who took his first win in the race.

Gounon was shooting for Bathurst history and a fourth straight win (something not even Australian Touring Car great Peter Brock managed during his career). Once again SunEnergy1 team owner Kenny Habul devised a strategy to enter the team’s car as an all-Pro entry, allowing him to complete minimal laps and allow Gounon and Luca Stolz to drive most of the laps.

With the top two firmly in place the late charge came from Christopher Haase, who moved from fifth to third in one move with only seven minutes of the race remaining. It was an opportune move from the Jamec Racing/MPC Audi that he shared with Kelvin van der Linde and Liam Talbot.

#75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo: Jules Gounon, Kenny Habul, Luca Stolz

#75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo: Jules Gounon, Kenny Habul, Luca Stolz

Photo by: Gruppe C GmbH

In fourth place, one of the best performances of the race came from the Phantom Global Racing Porsche 992 GT3R. After starting from 18th on the grid Joel Eriksson, Jaxon Evans and Bastian Buus picked their way into the top six after three hours and stayed there, holding out many teams with more Bathurst experience.

It was a day of contrasts for BMW. The two WRT M4 GT3s lost ground when they raced each other early in the race and the entry of Maxim Martin, Valentino Rossi, Raffaele Marciello finished fifth. But any chance of a win for the polesitting M4 ended when Charles Weerts launched into the wall at The Cutting after five hours, while trying to lap a GT4 car.

In the ProAm class, Alessio Picariello, Harry King and Yasser Shahin gave Porsche and the Manthey EMA team a double win when they took the lead in the closing 30 minutes of the race, after earlier being forced off the track at Brock Skyline.

In the class for Silver drivers the Wall Racing Lamborghini Huracan of Tony D ’Alberto/David Wall, Grant Denyer and Adrian Deitz took the win.

GT4 honours went to Daniel Bilski, Mark Griffith, Adam Christodoulou (Mercedes-AMG GT4).

There was plenty of action in the Invitational class, the Adam Hargraves/Daniel Jileson/Cedric Sbirrazzuloi in the MARC GT, which was rebuilt overnight after a major crash on Saturday.