{"id":483238,"date":"2026-02-16T07:45:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T07:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/483238\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T07:45:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T07:45:19","slug":"ford-star-christopher-mies-airs-bathurst-1000-supercars-wildcard-desire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/483238\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford star Christopher Mies airs Bathurst 1000 Supercars wildcard desire"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHRISTOPHER Mies is keen to make a wildcard Supercars start in the Repco Bathurst 1000.<\/p>\n

The two-time Bathurst 12 Hour winner, who is still Mount Panorama\u2019s outright lap record holder in an unrestricted GT3 Audi, has long been eager to book a return trip to race in October.<\/p>\n

The German GT ace\u2019s cause has been helped by his move last year from Audi, his long-time home, to Ford, where Mies is among the pool of factory GT3 pilots deployed to teams around the world on the Blue Oval\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n

He is keen for it to find a way to send him to the Mountain for Supercars\u2019 crown jewel event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m asking a lot! I\u2019m on the phone to Ford in America, Ford Racing a lot to have a wildcard entry for Bathurst,\u201d Mies told selected media, including V8 Sleuth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be an absolute dream.\u00a0Obviously it has to be funded and everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Mies isn\u2019t underestimating the scale of the challenge that he would face, and wouldn\u2019t want to embark on a wildcard program without a proper testing or acclimatisation period on track in a Gen3 Mustang.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a high class race. You can also not just show up here and think you\u2019re going to beat those guys,\u201d Mies said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have seen how good Broc (Feeney) is \u2013 incredible \u2013 but then also having Cam Waters<\/a> doing the pole, beating the (factory) Mercedes drivers, so you can\u00a0see that track knowledge here is super crucial and obviously those guys are also super, super talented, so it needs the right preparation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt needs to be the right time and you need to be comfortable and then in the end I would love to do it, no question.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Mies is also very open to a co-drive, a path beaten by fellow GT ace Kevin Estr\u00e9 who starred with Grove Racing in the 2023 enduros, although no teams have reached out to him to date.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end it has to go through Ford Racing anyway because I\u2019m a works driver for them, but they have plenty of teams,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike I said, I don\u2019t want to jump into it cold.\u00a0It also needs to be the right preparation.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut yeah, obviously if I get the call\u2026 in the end they don\u2019t even have to call me; just book me the flights and I\u2019ll be here!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Christopher Mies, Dennis Olsen and Broc Feeney<\/a> at the Bathurst 12 Hour. Pic: Ross Gibb<\/p>\n

Mies already has prior, albeit limited, experience behind the wheel of a Gen3 Mustang.<\/p>\n

Last January, he drove the car owned by Ford America at the Charlotte Roval<\/a> as a surprise present for winning the GT3 class in that year\u2019s Daytona 24 Hour.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really cool,\u00a0I liked it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say it\u2019s a bit more old school. You use all three pedals, you use the gear shifter, you do a heel and toe, do the blip and stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really enjoying it (at Charlotte) and then I got the chance again to do a show run for the Ford employees in Detroit where I drove it on a (closed) public road.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMike (Rockefeller) drove the Mustang GT3,\u00a0I drove the Supercar and we had some drag races and burnouts and stuff, so\u00a0that was really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite his gruesome exit from Sunday\u2019s Bathurst 12 Hour, where Mies was coated with blood and guts from hitting a kangaroo at 250km\/h<\/a>, the incident hasn\u2019t dimmed his desire to race at Mount Panorama.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I mean it\u2019s the same like crashing the car or crashing with another competitor; it happened,\u201d Mies explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a shame that if you do a mistake and you crash the car, the race is done and you\u2019re pissed about yourself, but hitting an animal, a kangaroo, it\u2019s just disappointing (and)\u00a0it\u2019s not the way you want to retire from a race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mies has suggested that the Bathurst 12 Hour should start later in the morning in order to avoid the risk of drivers striking kangaroos in dark pre-dawn conditions.<\/p>\n

Jack Perkins on his dramatic Bathurst 1000 debut<\/p>\n

AS far as inauspicious Bathurst 1000 debuts go, Jack Perkins\u2019 first crack at the Great Race in 2006 will sadly go down as one of the toughest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHRISTOPHER Mies is keen to make a wildcard Supercars start in the Repco Bathurst 1000. The two-time Bathurst…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-483238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483238","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=483238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}