Habul sorry for Grove incident, surprised by early aggression

KENNY Habul has expressed remorse over Stephen Grove's scary crash, while taking aim at what he considered to be the over-aggressive early driving standards of the 2025 Meguiar's Bathurst 12 Hour.

The opening third of the race has been punctuated by four Safety Cars, though the action was hot right from the word go when Maximilian Gotz, Ricardo Feller, and Maro Engel went three-wide up Mountain Straight off the start.

Gotz collided with Will Brown at Murray's Corner whilst battling for the effective lead to bring out the first Safety Car, before Ryan Sorensen had a hefty crash in the Method Motorsport GT4 McLaren, and swept up Marcel Zalloua in the Geyer Valmont Audi on the run to Skyline.

Habul then found himself at the centre of the race's most controversial incident so far when he snuck up the inside of fellow veteran Grove over the crest at Skyline.

Grove turned in on Habul, with the Grove Mercedes launched into a monumental impact with the outside wall, and flying skywards. Grove climbed out of the #4 Mercedes badly winded, and has since been taken to Orange for further observations.

Whilst there was no penalty handed out to Habul for the Grove collision, the two-time 12 Hour winner was slapped with a 15-second penalty for a clumsy collision with Ian James at The Chase.

The #75 Mercedes also collided with the #183 Audi driven by Liam Talbot during Habul's stint, with the Jamec Racing driver limping back to the pits after suffering a puncture.

Speaking after his stint, Habul was remorseful over the Grove incident, explaining he thought his fellow Mercedes driver was letting him through.

However, Habul but was less than complimentary of the aggressive driving standards of others during the start of the race, which has seen five Safety Cars to the halfway mark.

“Very aggressive out there,” Habul told the broadcast.

“This is the way it is every year, I don’t know why. People fight really early and they shouldn’t fight.

“I’m sorry for the incident with the Grove car, I know I was side-by-side. He slowed and moved over, and I thought he was letting me through, so I’m really disappointed for them.

“There’s just too much testosterone. Throw in the mix a few pelicans and it’s madness. All I wanted to do is stay out of the madness. I’m glad the car is in one piece and we’re still in a good position. Nothing happens in the first 11 hours.”

It was a difficult stint for Habul, who struggled on tyres used in Luca Stolz's first stint, and was also struggling with a slow leak in his right rear tyre, which saw him race with a tyre that could only generate half as much temperature as the other three tyres.

" We had a slow leak in the right rear, they were Luca's tyres... I couldn't get them up to temperature, and it kept coming down, and you need the right rear around here," Habul said.

"And then they come up to the stop, and then I said, 'Just change it', and they didn't want to take a set from the boys for later in the race.

"So in the end, all three other tyres were 70 degrees and the right rear was at 38, with a full tank of fuel. Man, it was how's your uncle everywhere. I was just holding onto it, doing the best I could."