Saturday, February 9, 2013

Positive qualifying for Audi teams at Bathurst 12 Hour


By Tarek Ramchani

Qualifying for the Bathurst 12 Hour took place today. Audi dominated most of the sessions yesterday, topping two out of three free practice sessions. The Audi Sport customer racing teams were not able to top the time sheets again.

The overall pole position went to # Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 from Erbus Motorsport. The best ranked Audi team was the #9 Network Clothing / Hallmarc. Christopher Mies, the 2011 and 2012 overall event winner with Audi, was able to qualify the "Red" Melbourne Performance Centre R8 LMS ultra in a very honorable 5th position. The defending champions from Phoenix Racing will start from seventh place on the grid. Only two Audi cars entered into the top 10, however the R8 LMS strength, as seen in countless endurance events, is consistency and reliability. Adding to that some strong driver line-ups and the Audi squad will be one of the favourites for the overall win. Qualifying result are here and here.

Here is how all seven Audi R8 LMS and ultra cars qualified for the Bathurst 12 Hour:

P5 #9 Network Clothing / Hallmarc

P7 #1 Phoenix Racing

P12 #6 Skwirk / Oneworld Bar

P13 #71 Equity-One Mortgage Fund

P14 #23 United Autosports

P15 #14 Peter Conroy Motorsport

P16 #81 DragonSpeed 


Photo credit: Bathurst 12 Hour /Phoenix Racing / United Autosports