#46 BMW, #911 Porsche Bathurst qualifying issues explained
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TWO pre-race favourites will have a literal mountain to climb in Sunday’s Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour following a difficult qualifying session on Saturday.
As Craft-Bamboo and Mercedes-AMG celebrated a stunning Allan Simonsen Pole Award win for Lucas Auer, there were scratching heads in the BMW and Porsche camps.
The #911 Absolute Racing Porsche of Matt Campbell/Ayhancan Guven/Alessio Picariello will start 11th, one position ahead of WRT’s #46 BMW of Raffaele Marciello/Charles Weerts/Valentino Rossi.
In the closing minutes of Q2 on Saturday, the #46 BMW was seen in the pit lane with an apparent overheating issue, with the team later stating a water leak was to blame.
Marciello, the 2019 pole winner, was ultimately unable to fire a shot, consigning the #46 to 12th. WRT’s #46 raced from sixth to sixth in 2023, and from eighth to fifth last year.
It was a far cry from the team’s #32 result, with 2024 pole winner Sheldon van der Linde ending up fourth in the Pirelli Pole Battle.
The #911, which boasts 2024 race winners Campbell and Guven, finished 10th, 13th, seventh and 11th in its four practice sessions, before 2020 pole winner Campbell qualified 11th.
The Australian quickly debriefed with his team following the session, before later saying the car had been a “handful.”
"In qualifying, across the top of the mountain, I was just fighting the car a lot,” Campbell told Sportscar365.
"There was a lot of oversteer and very edgy, which made it very difficult to push and you just can’t carry the minimum corner speed you want across the top.
"Obviously the other Porsche is going well but we’ve been struggling with medium to high speed balance. At least we’ve made a step… but quali was a bit of a handful at times.”
The #77 Craft-Bamboo Mercedes-AMG and #183 Jamec Racing/Team MPC Audi will share the front row for the 2025 Meguiar's Bathurst 12 Hour, which will get underway at 5:45am AEDT on Sunday morning at Mount Panorama.
Sunday's coverage on the Seven Network, Fox Sports, and Kayo will begin at 5:30am AEDT. Check your local guides for details.
