Rossi impresses at Mount Panorama
Team SunEnergy1 Mercedes, led by Mount Panorama resident Kenny Habul, won the 2023 LIQUI MOLY Bathurst 12-hour race, successively taking the crowns for the hometown favorites.
Australian Habul, Frenchman Jules Gounon and German Lucas Stolz won after a grueling 12 hours of racing at the spirit home of motorsport in Austalia, Mount Panorama.
The 2023 race was dramatic until the last minute, with the Mercedes GruppeM Racing team leading 30 seconds until a faulty modem caused data logging problems in Vehicle #999.
The team changed modems during their last pit stop, but that stop allowed SunEnergy1 to take advantage and race, only to hold out and win after the opponents came up late.
Jules Gounon, driver for SunEnergy1, inherited the lead after GruppeM’s Maro Engel was forced to take a drive-through penalty. Gounon resisted pressure from Matt Campbell, driver of the #912 Porsche, to win the race 0.9267 seconds in 323 laps over 2000 km long.
Luca Stolz and Kenny Habul also claimed a second straight win at Mount Panorama, while Gounon claimed a third straight win after being part of the Bentley team in 2020. Campbell, Mathieu Jaminet and Thomas Preining won second place and Engel took third place.
Team WRT finished in fourth and sixth with MotoGP great Valentino Rossi playing a key role in helping his team take 6th place in an impressive debut behind the wheel at Mount Panorama.
Triple Eight Race Engineering’s team, led by Supercar Champion Shane van Gisbergen, finished in fifth place after taking a driving penalty.
The Melbourne Performance Center won the Pro-Am class with Chaz Mostert in seventh and Craft-Bamboo Racing dropping to eighth after Daniel Juncadella was hit late in the race.
The top 10 was rounded off by MPC Audi, Triple Eight Mercedes-AMG and MPC also earned Silver.
This afternoon’s results completed the largest ever 12-hour LIQUI MOLY Bathurst event, which recorded a record fan count of 53,446 fans in three days, surpassing the previous record was set in 2019.
