A RED Bull Formula 1 car is set to turn demonstration laps around Mount Panorama during next year’s Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour race weekend.
Event organisers have announced that Red Bull will be bringing one of its V8-engined RB7 cars from its dual title-winning 2011 season down under for “on-track running” during the event.
Although the team recently signed Daniel Ricciardo as a ‘third driver’, there is no confirmation yet on who will be behind the wheel.
The runs form part of an overall event presence for the reigning F1 world champion team, with fans to have access to both the car and the team’s base within the paddock.
“Oracle Red Bull Racing are the current Formula 1 World Champions: Just to have them at the event is a privilege, but to know that the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 car will be lapping Mount Panorama will be something else,” event director Shane Rudzis said.
“This will be a spectacle like nothing we’ve seen at the 12 Hour before and takes the event to an entirely new level.
“This will be the best opportunity in 2023 for Australian F1 fans to get up close and personal with F1 machinery and an even rarer opportunity to see a Formula 1 car lap Mount Panorama.”
The last time relatively modern F1 machinery lapped Mount Panorama was in 2014, when the Australian Grand Prix Corporation brought a two-seater ride car to that year’s Bathurst 1000.
More famously, Vodafone brought McLaren to the Mountain in 2011 when Jenson Button and Craig Lowndes lapped a McLaren-Mercedes MP4-23 around the circuit.
Whether Red Bull uses its opportunity to pursue Button’s highly unofficial best lap of 1m48.8s remains to be seen.
The 2023 Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour will take place at Mount Panorama on February 3-5.
