Ford Performance Mustang 050
Geoffrey Harris12 Dec 2016
NEWS

MOTORSPORT: Mustang’s Bathurst debut

Bathurst Six-Hour has been opened up to the new Ford, and there could be one or more on the grid next April

The Easter Bunny may bring an Australian production racing debut for Ford’s new-generation Mustang at Mt Panorama next April.

Bathurst Six-Hour event director James O’Brien has announced today that, apart from a bumper entry already for the April 16 enduro, the Ford Mustang GT has been added to the event’s vehicle eligibility list.

The new ’Stang will be able to compete in the invitational class.

O’Brien said “several competitors have shown an interest in entering the race” with Mustangs.

“We know of at least one team advanced in their plans to enter one,” O’Brien said.

“It is likely the car is going to be a popular addition to production car racing in the near future and we expect to see several of them on the grid.”

ford mustang shelby 350S 051

Sixty-four cars, representing 14 manufacturers, already are entered for the Six-Hour.

Entries don’t close until March 10, so there is a prospect of a capacity field of 72 cars at Easter.

Even if not that many, it’s looking like a record starting line-up. The most cars to have started an enduro at The Mountain was 63 in the 1969 Hardie Ferodo 500 (miles), although 64 had qualified.

The entry list for next Easter already includes 22 cars in Class A1/A2 for extreme performance cars, 14 in B1/B2 (high-performance), eight in C (performance), 10 in D (production), three in E (compact) and seven in the invitational class.

Audi, BMW, Ford (with Barry Morcom entering a Focus RS LZ for son Nathan and Supercars star Chaz Mostert, who won this year in a BMW 335i), HSV, Mitsubishi, Mercedes and Subaru are expected to be the marques vying for outright honours.

“Teams planning to race but which have not entered yet need to seriously consider lodging their official entry as soon as possible because we are close to reaching capacity,” O’Brien said.

The entry list as it stands today can be viewed here

Suspension failure denies Giz chance at another title
New Supercars champion Shane Van Gisbergen missed out on collecting the trophy for the first Intercontinental GT Challenge when an early suspension failure in the McLaren 650S he raced in Malaysia at the weekend put it out of contention in the Sepang 12-Hour.

A long spell in the garage for repairs dropped the McLaren out of the top 20 but Van Gisbergen and co-drivers Alvaro Parente of Portugal and Come Ledogar of France fought back to finish tenth.

An Audi R8 LMS in which defending Sepang enduro victor Laurens Vanthoor was one of the drivers won to make the Belgian the Intercontinental GT Challenge champion. With another R8 third, Audi was the champion manufacturer.

Audi finished with 86 points to the 51 of the absent Bentley and 49 of McLaren and Mercedes-AMG.

McLaren won the opening round, the Bathurst 12-Hour, courtesy of Van Gisbergen, Parente and Jonathon Webb of Tekno Autosports.  Mercedes won the second round, the Spa 24-Hour in Belgium. The round planned for the Circuit of the Americas was cancelled.

The victorious Audi at Sepang started last, from the pitlane, after an alternator change less than an hour before the race.

The event was hit by intermittent rain from the fifth hour but it was the first major enduro in which every car that started – 25 of them – made it to the finish.

New Zealander Earl Bamber, the replacement for Mark Webber in Porsche’s prototype sports car team next season, was the star at Sepang with some brilliant overtaking in a Porsche 911. However, the 911s were surprisingly slow in the rain, perhaps because of the tyre pressures they ran.

Audi got the strategy right by pitting for rain tyres as soon as the heavens opened.

Vanthoor’s victory marked his last start for Audi before joining Porsche next year.

Top Australasian GT racers in the money next season
Australian GT racing will carry prizemoney of $200,000 next year.

The top entrant across the Australian GT Championship and the Australian Endurance Championship will be awarded $100,000. The other $100,000 will be distributed among the next four best competitors.

High ambitions at Tailem Bend
The official ground-breaking ceremony at The Bend Motorsport Park at Tailem Bend, 100km east of Adelaide, was held at the weekend amid claims the new venue will be ready to host Supercars in 2018.

The ‘headline’ at The Bend is a 7.7km circuit with 35 turns and a 1km main straight. Sam Shahin, executive director of his family’s Peregrine Corporation (South Australia’s largest private company) which is developing the facility, said the straight will allow for “fantastic side-by-side action” at speeds up to 300kmh.

There will be a 4.9km version of the track on which there are hopes of staging Supercars and international events, even MotoGP – although there is a long-term contract for that at Victoria’s Phillip Island.

“While the circuit will host top-level racing, it will be open to the public for a driving experience like no other,” Shahin said.

SA premier Jay Weatherill attended Saturday’s activities and posted on Facebook: “The Bend is set to become one of the world’s longest permanent circuits and is expected to create 1631 full-time jobs and bring 339,000 extra visitors to the region each year.

“It'll also feature a pit building, hotel and conference facilities, specialised drift and karting circuit, international Group 1 dragway, driver training facilities, accommodation facilities, airstrip, 4WD facility and an off-road facility.

“An important project not just for motorsport fans, but also local industries and our economy!”

As mentioned here last Friday, Lucas Earthmovers was confirmed as the construction contractor. Indeed, it has been working at the site for some time.

While the wheels might be turning quickly now on construction, no announcement from Saturday has yet made it to The Bend’s website, thebend.com.au.

Joey still hopping – now he leads MRF Challenge
Australia’s best-performed young international open-wheeler driver of the year, Joey Mawson, is keeping his pedal to the metal.

After winning the German Formula 4 Championship, he is now leading the MRF Challenge after two rounds in the Middle East, with two more to go in India in January and February.

Mawson won the last of four races in Dubai at the weekend and was on the podium in each of the other three, with two seconds and a third.

Three weeks earlier at the first round in Bahrain he had two seconds, a third and a sixth after a mechanical issue.

Fellow Aussies Zane Goddard and Dylan Young also are racing in the series, for Formula 3-style cars called Formula 2000 (because of their 2.0-litre Mountune Ford Duratec engines).

The cars are made in India by JA Motorsport in collaboration with Italy’s Dallara.

Mawson has been on the podium in 26 of his 35 races this year.

In the MRF Challenge he leads Harrison Newey, son of Red Bull Racing’s legendary Formula 1 designer and in his second year in the series.

Another competitor is Mick Schumacher, son of Michael and who Mawson beat to the German F4 title.

The remaining MRF rounds are at the Buddh International Circuit in New Delhi that briefly hosted F1 and the Madras circuit in Chennai.

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Written byGeoffrey Harris
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