2013 Liqui Moly Bathurst 12 Hour

The 2013 Liqui Moly Bathurst 12 Hour was an endurance race for a variety of GT and touring car classes, including: GT3 cars, GT4 cars, Group 3E Series Production Cars and Dubai 24 Hour cars. The event, which was staged at the Mount Panorama Circuit, near Bathurst, in New South Wales, Australia on 10 February 2013, was the eleventh running of the Bathurst 12 Hour. The race also incorporated the opening round of the 2013 Australian GT Championship. The Australian GT Championship was to compete as the first hour only and cars were permitted to enter for only that hour or to cross-enter for both the first hour and continue for the endurance race.

There were 53 starters in the race, the largest field since the Bathurst 12 Hour event shifted to GT orientation in 2011.

Cars competed in the following six classes.

Classes D & E were open to Group 3E Series Production Cars and Class I was for cars complying with the regulations for the 2013 Dubai 24 Hour race. There was also a provision for teams competing in the Australian GT Championship to race for the first 55 minutes of the race only, to compete for GT Championship points.

Two qualifying sessions were run on Saturday 9 February with Danish driver Allan Simonsen setting the fastest time of 2:05.49 in the Maranello Motorsport entered Ferrari 458 GT3. However, as penalties are applied for lap times recorded under 2:06 minutes to provide a form of parity, the car lost the lap time and acquired a 50 kg penalty.

Driving a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG for Erebus Motorsport, Germans Thomas Jäger, Alexander Roloff and former Formula One driver Bernd Schneider were the winners, covering 268 laps. The Ferrari 458 GT3 of Craig Baird, Matt Griffin and Weng Sun Mok finished a lap behind in second, with Griffin setting the fastest lap of the race with a lap of 2:06.8714. Finishing in third place was the VIP Petfoods Porsche 997 GT3-R of Matt Kingsley, Klark Quinn and Shane Van Gisbergen.

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