Race report
GT
Bathurst 12 Hour: BMW scores first win in 15 years with dominant 1-2
First triumph for BMW at Mount Panorama since 2010
Edited: Feb 2, 2025, 8:47 AM
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BMW has won the 2025 Bathurst 12 Hour, with the WRT BMW M4 GT3 of Kelvin van der Linde, Sheldon van der Linde and Augusto Farfus taking its maiden win in the race's GT3 era and leading a 1-2 finish.
Two of the changes in the race regulations since 2024 proved to be crucial and went some way in determining the winner of the race, held in hot and dry conditions at the 3.86-mile/6.213km Mount Panorama circuit.
In previous years drivers had been limited to stints of no more than 32 laps before refuelling, and had to serve a minimum number of stops. But those windows were wide open this year and BMW made the best use of the changes, and that made the difference.
Sheldon van der Linde handed the car over to his brother Kelvin with just over an hour of the race remaining, with a charging Chaz Mostert-driven Ferrari close behind him. But everyone at WRT – and Mostert – knew that the Italian car would need a lot of Safety Car laps to make the finish without another pitstop. Even after Mostert took the lead at The Chase with 37 minutes of the race remaining, no Safety Cars appeared in the final half-hour and that sealed the deal for the Belgian team.
Mostert pitted from the lead with 22 minutes of the race to run, resumed in sixth and moved up places when Matt Campbell and Lucas Auer, who were also out of their final fuel windows, pitted late in the race.
In the other BMW, Raffaele Marciello was on a charge, steaming around the outside of Jules Gounun' Mercedes-AMG at The Chase to take third, and then chased after the other car to make the best of its fuel, the Craft-Bamboo Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Auer. But the Mercedes also fell foul of its fuel window, pitting with six minutes left on the clock and promoting the second BMW of Marciello/Valentino Rossi/Charles Weerts to second.
#46 BMW M4 GT3, Team WRT: Valentino Rossi
Photo by: Edge Photographics
“It was the hardest two hours of my life,” said Kelvin after a 10.25s victory.
“We were fuel-saving, especially when Chaz was coming, and it was so hard. We are very proud.”
Farfus added: “We have been so close, so far and we wound up having a fast car and we executed a perfect race.”
Sheldon echoed his brother’s words: “I have to say it is brilliant, I think we were flawless from the get-go this morning. I have no words. We have been trying to win this race for three years!”
The BMW result was not without some good fortune. Rossi drove swiftly, but was spotted passing a slower GT4 entry under yellow flags. Straight afterwards, while Weerts was completing the consequent drive-through penalty, another Safety Car period for a separate incident allowed him to minimise the loss of track position and stay with the leaders, even if it dropped the car from second to eighth at the time.
What the race came down to was the six leading cars: both BMWs; the 75 Express Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Gounon, Luca Stolz and Kenny Habul; Mostert, Will Brown and Daniel Serra in the Arise Racing Ferrari 296 GT3; the Craft-Bamboo Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Auer, Maxi Gotz and Jayden Ojeda and the Absolute Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of defending winners Campbell and Ayhancan Guven, and Alessio Picariello. They finished in that order.
The best of the non-Pro entries in seventh outright turned out to be the Heart of Racing Mercedes-AMG of Ross Gunn, Ian James and Zach Robichon, which took out the Bronze class.
The Pro Am class winner was the second Arise Ferrari, driven by Jaxon Evans, Alessio Rovera, Brad Schumacher and Elliot Schutte, which got the better of the Manthey EMA Porsche. In the opening half of the race, the Porsche’s Pro drivers Laurin Heinrich and Morris Schuring were right among the Pro entries but the car lost pace during the stints of Bronze drivers Sam and Yasser Shahin.
In the Silver class and ninth outright was the #93 Wall Racing Lamborghini Brendon Leitch, Tony D’Alberto, Adrian Dietz and Australian television personality Grant Denyer.
The Adam Christodolou/Daniel Bilksi/Mark Griffith McLaren was the sole finisher in the GT4 class. The David Crampton/Trent Harrison/Glen Wood KTM X-bow took out the Invitational Class, in spite of the sole entrant in the class losing 20-plus laps while crash damage was repaired.
Cla Nº Driver Car / Engine Laps Time 1 32 Augusto Farfus
S.van der Linde
K.van der Linde BMW 306 12:01'53.1350 2 46 Valentino Rossi
Charles Weerts
R.Marciello BMW 306 12:02'03.3800 3 75 Kenny Habul
Jules Gounon
Luca Stolz Mercedes 306 12:02'04.4980 4 26 Chaz Mostert
William Brown
Daniel Serra Ferrari 306 12:02'57.0970 5 77 Maximilian Götz
Lucas Auer
Jayden Ojeda Mercedes 306 12:03'21.0390 6 911 A.Picariello
Ayhancan Guven
Matt Campbell Porsche 306 12:03'35.2030 7 27 Ross Gunn
Z.Robichon
Ian James Mercedes 305 12:03'38.3790 8 36 Jaxon Evans
Alessio Rovera
Brad Schumacher
Elliott Schutte Ferrari 303 12:01'53.7460 9 93 Tony D'Alberto
Adrian Deitz
Grant Denyer
Brendon Leitch Lamborghini 303 12:03'15.8760 10 91 Laurin Heinrich
Morris Schuring
Sam Shahin
Yasser Shahin Porsche 303 12:03'18.3430 11 9 Marc Cini
Dean Fiore
Lee Holdsworth Audi 291 12:02'58.6860 12 47 James Koundouris
Theo Koundouris
David Russell
Luke Youlden Mercedes 283 12:02'23.8930 13 14 Jamie Day
Jaylyn Robotham
Mateo Villagomez Aston Martin 276 12:02'37.4330 14 24 Cameron Campbell
Jake Santalucia
Anthony Levitt McLaren 276 12:06'20.5270 15 50 David Crampton
Trent Harrison
Glen Wood KTM 270 12:02'28.1630 16 19 Daniel Bilski
A.Christodoulou
Mark Griffith Mercedes 261 12:03'51.9930 17 44 Scott Andrews
Sergio Pires
Marcel Zalloua Audi 241 12:02'00.8790 - 888 Maro Engel
Maxime Martin
Mikaël Grenier Mercedes 170 7:05'46.3790 - 183 Broc Feeney
Ricardo Feller
Liam Talbot Audi 164 6:43'20.0960 - 4 Fabian Schiller
Brenton Grove
Stephen Grove Mercedes 53 2:18'40.3170 - 25 Paul Buccini
Tom Hayman
Ryan Sorensen McLaren 36 1:36'35.3980 - 222 Cameron Waters
Craig Lowndes
Tom Randle Mercedes 35 1:27'42.9450
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