The Supabarn team joins a strong 10-car Mercedes-AMG attack of the 12 Hour<\/a>, the largest entry by one brand in this year\u2019s event.<\/p>\nIn what is his first attempt at Australia\u2019s international enduro, the 2024 Super2 series champion will line up against some of the best GT drivers in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nice to be doing my first 12 hour, really looking forward to it. It\u2019s a race I\u2019ve always wanted to do,\u201c Bates told Speedcafe.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be racing with some of the top GT guys will be super cool, guys that I\u2019ve looked up to since I was little. So I will be soaking it all up.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Koundouris brothers have experience working and racing alongside Bates\u2019 father Rick, and had approached Zach about the 12 Hour drive throughout the 2025 season.<\/p>\n
Since the end of 2024, Bates has attended several test days with the team, and had the opportunity to drive the Mercedes-AMG GT3 in a recent outing at Sydney Motorsport Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way it came about was through the Koundouris boys, they are also Canberra locals. I have been attending all the test days they have had, which has been a great experience for me,\u201d said Bates on the opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been such an incredible experience to drive the Merc and really looking forward to what it will be like around Bathurst.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Bates, the Mercedes-AMG drive brings valuable seat time ahead of a highly anticipated full-time debut in the Repco Supercars Championship for Matt Stone Racing, as the season commences just one weekend after the 12 Hour.<\/p>\n
The Meguiar\u2019s Bathurst 12 Hour is set to commence on Friday February 13th, with the race starting at 5:45am AEDT on Sunday February 15th.<\/p>\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/285241.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zach Bates. Image: Richard Gresham \/ Speedcafe The Matt Stone Racing recruit will join brothers Theo and James…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,190013,129547,806,805,803,804,85,43679],"class_list":["post-462213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bathurst-12-hour","tag-mercedes-amg","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports","tag-zach-bates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Zach](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/2025-Supercars-Queensland-Raceway-Testing-Evaluation-Z81_7147_.jpg\")