Peace returned to the Mountain circuit of Bathurst today after numerous cars were either badly damaged or destroyed in the final Free Practice and first of three Qualifying sessions earlier on Saturday.

The head count on damaged cars during FP5 could have also have included the #62 R-Motorsport Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT3 of Luca Ghiotto as he suffered a 'glitch in cornering adhesion' (for the want of a better term) whilst going through the left hander into McPhillamy Park. Despite taking a large loop through the gravel he at least survived to lap again whereas others would not be so fortunate.


The end of Free Practice still left even the fastest of AMR cars still 1.6 seconds off the pace of those at the top but at least all four Astons were slowly improving as the session progressed.

Q1 later in the midday heat of the near Australian outback saw all remaining thirty six cars run albeit for the GT3 teams, this was just procedural and an affective fuel burn off stage ahead (refuelling banned once Qualifying starts) of their main Qualifying session next.


Fifteen minutes into the first forty five of Q1 saw a massive accident take place at the scene of Ghiotto's earlier near miss and that wiped out both the Mercedes AMG and the Marc Cars involved. Best news of all was that both drivers removed themselves from the wrecks of their cars unaided and were mainly uninjured.

Due to the delay in clearing the track, this session was reduced in time length but being only used to determine the grid for the GT4 and INV starters, this mattered not to the GT3 teams as their clocks effectively zero'd again ready for Q2.


Ten minutes into Q2's thirty minute session disaster struck the #62 R-Motorsport with this time Marvin Kirchhofer at the wheel. Running slightly wide coming into The Grate, the #62 car bounced off the outside concrete wall (breaking its right hand side geometry and steering), sending it (luckily) rearward and hard into the concrete wall again for a massive secondary impact.

With debris being strewn in all directions the car is then seen to stand up on its now crumpled rear before rolling over at least once before coming to a half (fortunately) on any wheels it had left. Miraculously in this case, Kirchhofer had already started to remove himself from the wreckage of his car as emergency crews and other drivers reach the crash site and attended to him - seeing him walk unaided to the medical car was the best news that anyone could ask for at the time and that paid testimony to the design, build qualify and technical regulation that goes into modern race cars. The chassis however will have to be consigned to the scrap heap and replaced!


With personal concern still in their minds, it was amazing how these drivers then went out again to finish off their Qualifying despite everything that they had just seen. All was not sadly done though though in the 'land of carnage' as a Lamborghini managed to crash and land on top of the tyre wall at the scene of the previous Mercedes/Marc Car accident!!

At the end of the day - progress has again been made by the now three remaining AMR teams from both R-Motorsport and Garage 59. Jake Dennis and his #76 crew reached the Top 10 shoot out again but had to settle for a P10 start in tomorrows race having finished just 1.1 seconds behind the Pole setting Porsche.


The two Garage 59 cars P18 overall for the #188 Pro-Am entry for Alex West/Come Ledogar/Chris Goodwin/Maxime Martin (that's a P3 start in class) whilst the immensely impressive so far Silver #159 entry for Andrew Watson/Oliver Hart/Roman de Angelis Qualified P20 overall and P2 in Class.

Race starts 18:45 GMT Saturday evening and its going to be eventful!!

Photo credits - IGTC

At the time of posting this piece, only a couple of hours (Australian time) remains before the first track session of the Bathurst 12hrs and the first round of the SRO Intercontinental GT Challenge from Mount Panorama in the east of Australia.

Over the course of Thursday, the thirty nine cars spread across GT3, GT4 and Invitational classes took their now customary leisurely drive down from the circuit to the town of Bathurst to meet the locals and the many thousands of converging race fans ahead of the more formal track activities that lead into the start of the race proper on Sunday morning.


Four new turbo charged Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GT3's grace the grid this year having not been able to compete at last years event due to the ruleset demanding only race cars with homologation papers at least a year old and as the new Vantage platform wasn't formally homologated under March 2019, that meant that R-Motorsport had to make do with the older, normally aspirated version. Of course by saying 'making do' means that they still damn near won the race overall had it not been for a pesky Porsche!!!

This year, Swiss based R-Motorsport bring two such machines to Australia this year for a full two car attack on Class A Pro for drivers Jake Dennis, Scott Dixon and Rick Kelly aboard their #76 car and Marvin Kirchhofer, Oliver Caldwell and Luca Ghiotto aboard the #62 car. Dixon and Kelly both need no introduction as multiple Indycar and V8 Supercar race and Championship winners respectively whilst Ghiotto and Caldwell have their first real GT3 experience around one of the toughest permanent public road circuits about.


Garage 59 also commit to the series as a full season entry as well as with two of their AMR Vantage GT3's for this event. As published only a day or so ago, team co-owner Alex West described his race intentions to us by confirming just why they had employed the driving talents of AMR WEC driver Maxime Martin alongside their existing three driver line up of them plus Chris Goodwin and Come Ledogar as they look to take the Class A Pro-Am race win by storm. They will be complemented by their Class A Silver #159 car of Andrew Watson, Roman de Angelis and Oliver Hart who all (along with Martin from the #188 car) debut at the circuit this weekend. Obviously, both Watson and de Angelis will be hoping of something better after their respective AMR Vantage GTD's suffered early race ending damage at last weekends Rolex 24.


Four Free Practice sessions lay ahead of the teams today (Friday) before a fifth session on Saturday morning ahead of Qualifying and the Top 10 shootout later in the afternoon. Race itself starts very early at 05:45hrs local (GMT + 11hours).

We were originally hoping for five such beasts as the IGTC grid is this weekend being supported with cars from the Australian GT Endurance Championship - looks like we will have to wait a few more weeks for the Australian GT debut of the Tony Quinn Vantage GT3!

Cant wait............!!!

Photo credits - IGTC / Castrol

With two Aston Martin Racing Partner teams entering two V8 Vantage GT3's apiece into the 2020 Bathurst 12Hr, today sees another drive line up confirmed leaving just one outstanding ahead of the event that starts at the end of the month.

Following on from their announcement late last year from Swiss based R-Motorsport running a top level all Pro line up in the #76 car, today sees the team announce another trio of drivers (also entered into the full Pro class) but this time made of a trio with mixed racing experience.


Long time team racer Marvin Kirchhofer this year joins up with the first new recruit signed by the team for their 2020 campaigns in Luca Ghiotto who will in turn be joined by GT3 debutant yet already a single seater and GT4 Champion Ollie Caldwell.

Italian racer Ghiotto has spent the majority of his racing career to date in single seaters with the last three seasons racing in the FIA F2 Championship. This season he has also raced with Ginetta LNT in the World Endurance Championship in their LMP1.

Caldwell meanwhile has been completing most of his racing calendar last year abroad in the Formula Regional European Championship, at the Macau Grand Prix in an FIA F3 car as well as the German ADAC F4 Series - all from which he earned himself as a top ten finalist in the 2019 Aston Martin Autosport Young Driver of the Year.

In 2018 he also secured the overall GT4 class win in the Gulf 12hr in a Mercedes with Ram Racing's Ian Loggie.

This will be Caldwell's first visit to the Mountain and his first GT3 race, similar to how it was with Matt Parry last year with the team when the (birthday boy today) raced in the teams #760 normally aspirated Vantage GT3 with the two team Principles for the first time. Parry also served as Caldwell's personal driver coach during his 2019 season.


This trio lines up alongside Jake Dennis, Scott Dixon and Rick Kelly who have already been confirmed by the team within their #76 car, a car that will this time run in a Castrol Oil livery. Despite the depth and quality of these names, this will also be the first time that multiple Indycar Champion Dixon has ever raced at the circuit whereas former V8 Supercar racer Kelly obviously has many times and with Dennis who was part of the trio that finished a very close second at last years event.


These two cars are of course joined by two from the Garage 59 stable with team co-owners Alex West and Chris Goodwin again partnering up with their resident Pro driver Come Ledogar in their #188 Pro-Am entry.

They will be joined by the as yet unconfirmed trio of Silver ranked drivers aboard their second car.


The 2020 12hrs of Bathurst also starts off the 2020 Intercontinental GT Challenge - a five race series which will also take most of these GT3 runners to Spa Francorchamps, Suzuka, Indianapolis before concluding again in Kyalami, South Africa.

Track action for the Bathurst 12Hr runners begins with the first Free Practice session on Friday 31t January.

Photo credits - IGTC / R-Motorsport / Garage 59