HOW many racing laps of Mount Panorama in a GT3 race car can you fit into 12 Hours?
Well, as it turns out, 323!
That’s the record set in last year’s Bathurst 12 Hour by the winning SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG of Kenny Habul, Jules Gounon and Luca Stolz.
The 323 laps equates to 2006.799-kilometres of racing and eclipsed the previous record, set in 2020 by the winning Bentley (with a driver line-up also including Gounon) by nine laps (55.917-kilometres).
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The next best number of laps completed by the winning car is 312 (1938.46-kilometres), set by the 2019-winning Porsche with a driver line-up including Matt Campbell.
Good weather, minimal Safety Car periods and fast cars pushing hard at the front of the field all help distance records happen, but it’s also worth looking at the least number of laps completed in the Bathurst 12 Hour.
Unsurprisingly the production car era – when the cars were slower than the GT3 machinery – gives us this Bathurst 12 Hour record.
Also unsurprising is that the 2010 race – the one where nearly 40 percent of the race was either spent behind the Safety Car or stopped due to torrential rain, not to mention the fact a tree also fell down and blocked the track at one stage – holds the record for the least laps completed by a Bathurst 12 Hour winner.
The BMW 335i of John Bowe, Garry Holt and Paul Morris completed 202 laps (1255.025-kilometres) on its way to victory.
The next on the list for least laps completed by a winner in 12 Hour history came the previous year, when Tony Longhurst, Rod Salmon and Damien White completed 239 laps.
The inaugural race in 1991, won by the Toyota Supra of Peter Fitzgerald, Allan Grice and Nigel Arkell, was run over 242 laps of racing.
This year’s Repco Bathurst 12 Hour will be held on February 16-18.
