Bathurst 12 Hour: Wittmann finishes Day 1 on top

The two-time DTM champion first went fastest 15 minutes into the session with a 2m05.578s, replacing Garth Tander (#75 Jamec Pem Audi) on top before Tander responded a lap later.

But there was no answer to the 2m03.219s that Wittmann rolled out with 23 minutes of the hour remaining, the time leaving the #60 M6 not only on top for the session, but for the entire day, with a tenth of a second margin over Chaz Mostert’s time in the early afternoon session.

The #75 Audi ended up second in the late afternoon session, Chris Mies lowering the car’s best time to a 2m03.913s, the third best time of the day.

Third in the session was the #88 Maranello Ferrari, rounding out a day of finishing at or very close to the top of the times. This time it was Craig Lowndes’s turn to do the majority of the running, the Supercars superstar banking a 2m04.322s to back up Vilander’s P1 in the first session and Jamie WHincup’s P2 in the second session.

Fourth, and the leading Pro-Am entry, was the #12 Competition Motorsports Porsche, while the #22 HTP Motorsport Mercedes was the leading AMG.

The defending winners were sixth fastest, Come Ledogar with a 2m04.857s in the #1 Tekno McLaren, with the all-star #7 BMW Team SRM line-up, with Bathurst legends Mark Skaife, Tony Longhurst, and Russell Ingall joined by Timo Glock, wound up seventh quickest.

The sole factory Nissan was eighth, the #8 Bentley Continental in ninth, and the #35 Miedecke Stone Aston Martin in 10th, best of the Am entries.

In Group B, the #4 Grove Porsche clean-swept the practice sessions with the fastest time (29th outright), with the #91 MARC Focus leading the way in the Invitational class (34th outright). The #19 PROsport Porsche topped Class C (43rd outright), while fellow Class C competition Tim Berryman had a sorry end to the session when he crashed the #55 Ginetta at Turn 9, causing a lengthy red flag.