FOUR-TIME Bathurst 1000 winner Greg Murphy endured his fair share of highs and lows at Mount Panorama; however, his most famous penalty has been topped in today’s Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour GT classic.
Young gun Bayley Hall and his Volante Rosso Motorsport team were pinged a whopping six minutes in the opening half of today’s race – one minute more than Murphy’s famous penalty from 2002’s Great Race.
Hall – who is tipped to be joining Craig Lowndes as co-driver in the Team 18-run, Supercheap Auto Camaro wildcard later in the year in the Supercars endurance races – is driving a McLaren 720S GT3 EVO.
He’s sharing the #15 entry with new Dick Johnson Racing Supercars signing Rylan Gray, fellow young gun Marcos Flack and Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer.
Hall and the team were penalised six minutes for the young gun exceeding the maximum permitting continuous driving time by 17 minutes.
Gray was at the wheel when the car served the six minute penalty, which was in fact the second the car had earned in the race, having previously copped a drive through for a pitstop rule breach.
The team had moved its refuelling tower during a pit stop as the hose was unable to reach the car from where it had pulled up at its pit bay.
The #15 McLaren has had quite a day at Bathurst already … Photo: Ross Gibb.
Gray later caused the fourth Safety Car period of the race after he crashed the McLaren on the run through the Esses approaching the Dipper.
Murphy was famously parked in the pits at Bathurst for five-minutes in the ‘02 Bathurst 1000 after his Kmart Racing Commodore left its pit bay with the fuel hose still connected.
Fuel sprayed all over the pit lane as the coupling pulled away, though thankfully it did not ignite and was mopped up by the crew.
The emotive New Zealander was later penalised by Race Control and forced to park the #51 Holden in the team’s pit bay for a whopping five minutes.
The penalty took he and co-driver Todd Kelly out of the running to win that year’s Great Race and the moment became part of Bathurst folklore when Murphy decided to vacate the car and head to a portable toilet in the team’s garage.
The Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour continues today at Mount Panorama with BMW aiming to defend its 1-2 result from last year.
The race finishes at 5.45pm AEDT local time today.