Former Supercars driver Maro Engel has guided Team GMR to victory in a chaotic Bathurst 12-hour as Ford’s sole entrant crashed out after hitting a kangaroo.<\/p>\n
Engel’s No.888 Mercedes crossed the finish line first at Mount Panorama, with the German claiming victory with co-drivers Mikael Grenier and Maxime Martin on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The factory-backed Mercedes outfit won the 262-lap marathon by 1.036 seconds ahead of the No.86 Team High Class Racing Porsche in second.<\/p>\n
Supercars star Broc Feeney was the first scalp claimed after No.67 HRT Ford Racing co-driver Christopher Mies hit a kangaroo at top speed on Conrod Straight less than 20 minutes into the 12-hour marathon.<\/p>\n
The two-time Bathurst 12-hour winner was able to exit the field’s sole Ford entrant, but was covered in kangaroo blood as the car sustained extensive damage to its front-left.<\/p>\n
Mustang’s third driver Dennis Olsen said Mies had hit the kangaroo while racing at 250km\/h, but was cleared by the medical team.<\/p>\n
“Luckily, Mies is OK,” Olsen told Fox Sports.<\/p>\n
“We can see that he was for sure impacted by that. I’m glad he’s OK, that’s the main thing.”<\/p>\n
Legendary MotoGP rider Valentino Rossi was third in the No.26 Team WRT BMW, after finishing second last year.<\/p>\n
Engel and his team claim victory after qualifying 29th out of the 34 cars – setting a new record for the lowest starting position to win the endurance race.<\/p>\n
“I’ve waited a long time for this,” Engel, who raced for Supercars outfit Erebus in 2013, told Fox Sports.<\/p>\n
“It’s every bit as special as I dreamt it would be.”<\/p>\n
One-time Supercars champion Will Brown led the No.183 Jamec Racing-Team MPC Audi to fourth in front of 55,231 fans.<\/p>\n
The race was suspended under the red flag for an hour after then-leader Ralf Aron’s No.77 Mercedes burst into flames following a collision with the No.79 Porsche of Johannes Zelger.<\/p>\n
Unaware Zelger had spun to a halt after the bend at Forrest Elbow, Aron obliterated his car after rocketing into the Porsche with three hours and 40 minutes remaining.<\/p>\n
Aron’s No.77 Mercedes wasn’t the only car to be engulfed in flames, with Supercars driver James Golding suffering a similar fate.<\/p>\n
Blanchard Racing Team driver Golding had failed to recover after brushing the barrier on the run to McPhillamy Park, resulting in a heavy airborne collision against the concrete wall.<\/p>\n
Aron, Golding, and Zelger were able to exit their cars, with Aron taken to hospital in Orange for further assessment.<\/p>\n
Tickford ace Cam Waters had snared pole position in the No.222 Scott Taylor Motorsport Mercedes with co-drivers Thomas Randle and defending Supercars champion Chaz Mostert.<\/p>\n
But the all-Australian line-up was ruled out with less than an hour on the clock, after Mostert collided with Supercars rookie Jayden Ojeda in No.2 Team Tigani Motorsport Mercedes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Supercars driver Maro Engel has guided Team GMR to victory in a chaotic Bathurst 12-hour as Ford’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-484205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484205","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=484205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}