{"id":486186,"date":"2026-02-17T17:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T17:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/486186\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T17:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T17:42:09","slug":"bathurst-12h-could-become-gt3-only-race-by-next-year-sportscar365","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/486186\/","title":{"rendered":"Bathurst 12H Could Become GT3-Only Race By Next Year \u2013 Sportscar365"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/p>\n

Photo: Gruppe C Photography\/SRO<\/p>\n

The Meguiar\u2019s Bathurst 12 Hour could become a GT3-only race by as early as next year according to event director Shane Rudzis.<\/p>\n

The development comes amid a proposal to bring SRO Motorsports Group\u2019s Monochrome GT4 Australia series on the support bill<\/a> next year, following the growing number of top-class GT entries for the Australian enduro.<\/p>\n

Last weekend\u2019s race featured 35 cars, all but four of them being GT3 entries in the largest car count since the 2020 edition that had 33 GT3-spec machines.<\/p>\n

Only two GT4 cars were entered, along with a single KTM X-Bow GT2 and IRC GT car each in the Invitational class.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on our garages at the track, that\u2019s a limiting factor,\u201d Rudzis told Sportscar365. \u201cThere\u2019s 36 garages but we have to use one for our TV, so we probably have 34-35 garages. That\u2019s the sweet spot, if it was to be an all-GT3.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way it\u2019s going at the moment, I think we\u2019ll end up with GT3s [only], whether that\u2019s next year or the year after, I\u2019m not sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rudzis explained that GT4s and other slower class machinery, such as a category for Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars, helped build the event in the mid-to-late 2010s when GT3 was still building up steam in Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom us, when we were fighting to get GT3 cars in the country, we wanted to have a good grid size [in the 12 Hour], so the GT4 and Invitational classes have helped us get there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s part of the DNA of the 12 Hour for many years. Everyone now knows what the MARC cars. They\u2019re all competitive.\u00a0Multi-class racing is the history of the Mount Panorama Circuit. It\u2019s always there.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut with GT3 and IGTC being so strong now with manufacturers committing to it, it means there\u2019s more cars in the world from GT3 and there\u2019s more coming to Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s guys that run these cars that want to tick the bucket list off. Mount Panorama is one of those race tracks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s five times a year that it\u2019s available to race on. This is the most suitable time for most people to get a GT3 car and come out and actually race on this amazing circuit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rudzis said he sees the shift to a GT3-only race as a \u201cnatural evolution\u201d rather than a stated goal to eliminate the other classes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain you look at this year with the number of GT3 cars, it\u2019s huge,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had two or three other GT3 cars that were coming that couldn\u2019t quite get everything together.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt one stage there, we thought we were going to have 35-36 GT3 cars coming, which is a good headache to have.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking at that, and when you have the manufacturers coming into the GT space, such as Toyota with the GR product, when that comes on\u2026 we see from global motorsport they\u2019re a powerhouse.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to race the best tracks in the world, the IGTC, for Toyota, I\u2019m assuming would be on their list anyways.<\/p>\n

\u201cSRO has been doing a good job of growing GT3 category in Australia for the championship. It\u2019s a good thing and that foundation will help us with the grid size as we bring in internationals as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Should the Bathurst 12 Hour become GT3 only, the N\u00fcrburgring 24 will become the only Intercontinental GT Challenge round with multi-class racing, as GT4s were also phased out of the Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS several years ago, and both the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa and Suzuka 1000km have been exclusively for GT3s as well.<\/p>\n

Supercars Eying Expansion to Four-Day Event Format<\/p>\n

Event promoter Supercars is also investigating expanding the Bathurst 12 Hour into a four-day event next year, which would add a paid test day on the Thursday of the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI speak to a lot of the drivers and a lot of the Bronze drivers,\u201d said Rudzis. \u201cI think we\u2019re at the level of the event now, from all aspects, that we should look at a test day on the Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would start a day earlier but it\u2019s paid testing. I\u2019m sure most teams will want to get their cars and drivers out there for some testing and hit the ground running on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just listening to our competitors and coming up with a solution that would be a win-win for both the event also for those guys.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could make it a a safer and even quicker race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rudzis is hopeful of also retaining the current mid-February date for the event, which has been largely welcomed by competitors both in Australia and around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe feedback I\u2019n getting from a lot of people is that this is the perfect date for the event,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to give some gap to Daytona. It struggled as back-to-back. Crews get here pretty wrecked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been very good for us, to have these extra two weeks as a company to put this event on, it\u2019s a big show, it gave us some buffer coming out of the festive season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re waiting for news, at the moment, for Asian Le Mans. We\u2019re trying to also balance things out like Chinese New Year, Ramadan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to maximize our entries of both race entries and we want the best drivers in the world to come here. They all want to come here. They\u2019re pressuring me to make sure we don\u2019t clash with anything.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Gruppe C Photography\/SRO The Meguiar\u2019s Bathurst 12 Hour could become a GT3-only race by as early as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-486186","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\/486186","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=486186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}