Australia’s greatest endurance race is underway, and over the next rotation of the sun I’ll be updating you on the hectic happenings of the 2025 Bathurst 12 Hours.

After ten minutes under safety car, Maximilian Gotz lead the pack into turn one and after a small moment under braking the Jamec Racing no.183 of Ricardo Feller and Augusto Farfus’s no.32 car ganging up on the polesitter. The cars incredibly ran three wide up the Conrod straight under the cover of darkness in an incredible moment. Here’s hoping that is an omen of what’s to come.

Significant worry comes from the KTM camp. They’ve got one X-bow GT2 car in the race courtesy of Vantage Racing, but the no.50 entered the pits fifteen minutes into the race. Ten minutes later what eventually turned out to be electrical issues were solved. 

Chaz Mostert was a man on a mission as the sun came up, not thirty minutes into the twelve hours after a good run through the chase launched it up the inside and put his no.26 Arise Ferrari into the lead of the race ahead of Maxi Gotz. He also took the fastest lap of the race on the same lap.

Jamie Day’s no.14 Aston Martin was the first car to experience a code brown over the mountain as he hit the wall square on at Quarry, luckily escaping with no internal damage. 

The first of the stoppers was the Hallmarc Audi, Deane Fiore pitting early after a fifty minute stint, and fifteen minutes later it was the Pro Audi, Ricardo Feller replaced in the no.183 Jamec Racing entry by Liam Talbot as the sun rose higher over the legendary Mount Panorama.

Then came the pro entries, Chaz Mostert entered ten seconds ahead of the chasing pack, alongside Gotz’s no.77 car, the no.75 of Luca Stolz and also the no.222 of Thomas Randle. Both WRT BMW’s and also Absolute Racing’s no.911 car opted to attempt the overcut. Driver changes were for the no.75 as Kenny Habul entered for his first stint.

Drama came just after Will Brown of the no.26 Arise Ferrari tagged the rear end of Gotz’s no.77 Mercedes, resulting in the first safety car being brought out. It meant that both BMWs got a free pass into the lead, losing far less time in their pitstops as the Craft Bamboo Mercedes dropped a lap on the rest of the Pro field.

At the restart the order was the no.32 WRT BMW of Augusto Farfus ahead of Valentino Rossi in the sister no.46 car who’d taken over from Rafealle Marciello in the pitstop. The no.888 Mercedes of Maxime Martin, who’d also entered the car during the pitstop was third.

Ryan Sorensen’s no.25 Mclaren Artura GT4 was tagged by Deane Fiore’s no.9 Audi and slammed into the barriers after a hectic restart. 

Maxime Martin’s no.888 GruppeM Mercedes was then given a drive through penalty for a breach of safety car procedure after passing under yellow on the restart, hurting that car’s chances. It was running third overall at the time.

More drama came in the pro category, Craig Lowndes no.222 stopped on track after coming through the chase, undoing his seatbelt and leaving the car stationary on the live racetrack thanks to a suspension failure ripping the rear left bodywork off the car. It was the race’s first retirement.

Not a lap later, Liam Talbot’s no.222 car was found running slowly over the mountain after a close battle with Kenny Habul’s no.75 Mercedes with a left front puncture. Otherwise the car was fine but Talbot did well to avoid further incident. Kenny Habul’s contact earlier on landed him a fifteen second penalty.

Contact between the no.44 Pro/Am class leading Audi and Ryan Sorensen’s no.25 Mclaren Artura rendered them both out not two hours into the race. Sorensen lost it going over Skyline, and rebounded off the barrier into an extremely unlucky Marcel Zalour who could do nothing about it. This brought out the race’s second safety car.

The leaders then pitted, with both WRT cars plus the no.91 machine which had been piloted by Morris Schurring since the previous safety car. All cars took fuel, but were held to the eighty second minimum pitstop time. 

All this in just two hours, as from the back of the Pro field Ayhancan Guven and Absolute Racing lead the Bathurst 12 Hours as we still run under safety car. Silver is lead by Ecuador’s Mateo Villagomez in the no.14 Silver Cup entry, Bronze is lead by Steven Grove’s no.4 Grove Racing Mercedes and Pro/Am’s leader is the no.91 car with Sam Shahin. GT4 is led by Nineteen Racing’s Mark Griffith.

thumbnail credit – Ted Barrett, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons