Friday Paddock Notes | dailysportscar.com
Confirmation has come through that Keith Kassulke has suffered no major injuries after his mega shunt in FP4. Reports state that he was conscious throughout, and communicative with recovery while being extracted from the car.
A major crash at The Chase has cut short Practice 4 at the Bathurst 12 Hour.
Keith Kassulke has been cleared of major injuries: https://t.co/vWdT9Kyg7H #B12hr pic.twitter.com/BDY7ie95Jw
— Bathurst 12 Hour (@Bathurst12hour) February 3, 2023
Vision at the track showed the MARC II V8 arriving at a rate of knots into the chase, with the car squirreling over the inside kerb and launching into the air. The car then landed in the gravel trap at speed, hit the outside tyre barrier and rolled onto it’s roof.
At this stage, no reason has been given for the cause of the accident.
KTM Out, another Audi in
The #50 M-Motorsport/Vantage Freight KTM X-Bow GT2 has been an early casualty of the weekend, with the team moving to a spare Audi chassis provided by Melbourne Performance Centre. Intense work was observed in the #50 garage after FP2, with the car not seen at all during FP3. When DSC went down to check in, the KTM had been moved to the back of the garage, with an Audi R8 chassis taking it’s place.
DSC caught up with driver David Crampton at the end of the day’s running.
“The first practice session this morning went really well. I jumped in for P2… fifth or sixth lap, turned out of turn 2, and lost all power and the wastegate warning light came on. Literally the same problem and the same place as the Bathurst International.
“[Team manager] Justin went down to Audi, and spoke to me, and within an hour we made a decision to run the Audi.
“We don’t know [what the issue is] – we’ve got two engines and we don’t know what the problem is.”
The Audi they’ve acquired is the Melbourne Performance Centre spare car, which has been leased to the team for the weekend. The car is the same car that MPC freighted from Melbourne last year to replace the #47 Supabarn car that was written off on Friday.
“The guys have put so much work in, we’ve bought tyres, we’ve got the team here, the extra costs… Either we go home after spending a lot of budget or push on to the extra level.”
It will be David’s first competitive outing in a GT3 car.
An unfortunate consequence of the situation is that Jayden Ojeda will miss out on the race due to the team being upgraded to the Silver class.
“You can’t run three silver and a bronze, but you can run two bronze and two silver, so unfortunately he’s out. Just a real shame.”
The car made laps in FP4, and will be ready for running tomorrow.
SIN Troubles
The SIN R1 has been in the wars today, in and out of the pit garage with the team chasing an oil leak. The car only set 6 laps in FP1, before missing FP4 entirely. Team Manager Jamie Augustine was frustrated at the situation, with the SIN just missing out on getting back on track when the Red Flag was called in FP4.
“We thought we fixed it, and we hadn’t, then we thought we’d fixed it, then we hadn’t. And we think we fixed it now,” said Jamie. “We were on the pit lane ready to go, and the red flag came out, which is really annoying because now we don’t know if we’ve fixed it or not.
“We were probably two minutes shy of making it out and finding out.”
If the oil leak can’t be fixed, the other option is a new engine.
“It’s a lot of work to change the engine in that… Engine and transaxle out, suspension… it’s a big job.
“It’ll take us all night.
“If we don’t change it now, we have to change it saturday night… we’re in all sorts of pain if we don’t do it now.”
Despite the issues, Jamie was realistic of the chances of the car.
“If we just go around in the 10’s to 12’s all day long, we’ll do alright. That’s what wins the class.”
“Rossi beats Schumacher”
The headline from FP2 was that Moto GP legend Valentino Rossi had pipped Bathurst local Brad Schumacher to the top time of the session on the final lap. Chatting to the media after the session, Rossi described his elation of being at the track.
“The track is very impressive… It’s very difficult, very technical, but also great fun,” Rossi said. “Especially the fast part on the top of the mountain and after when you come down.
“Every lap, you want to take a little bit more but it’s difficult because the wall is right there. You have to take a bit of margin because if you make a mistake it’s a big problem.”
“We always played with the sim, Mount Panorama is one of the mythical tracks, so from the Playstation to racing now, I’ve done a lot of laps!”
“It’s emotional, to be at the track for the first time.”
When asked if he’d like to race around in a bike, Rossi responded “I think it’s impossible!”
A Pro-Am overall win?
With the Pro drivers in the Pro Am cars, and the speed of some of the amateurs in those cars, there has been a legitimate question on whether or not a Pro-Am class car could take overall honours.
The Bathurst 12 hour has been won by a Pro-Am class car in the past; the 2015 event saw Katsumasa Chiyo storm to the lead after a late safety car to win with Florian Strauss and Wolfgang Reip in a Pro-Am car, ahead of Phoenix racing’s all-pro line up of Laurens Vanthoor, Markus Winkelhock, and Marco Mapelli.
FP1 pace setter Chaz Mostert was optimistic of the chances of the #65 Sportsbet Audi.
“We’d like to think we can punch above our weight class, and see if we can get into the pro race throughout the day.
“But we’re going to need a lot of luck and a lot of factors coming into it… I’d like to have a crack, 100%!”
Ricardo Feller was similarly interested at the prospect for the #777 The Bend Motorsport Park Audi.
“It would be awesome to fight for the overall victory… First it’s important to focus on the Pro-Am, and if we are good in the Pro-Am already, we’ll be somewhere in the top 10 overall.
“For sure it would be nice, I wouldn’t say no!”
Brad Schumacher, who set the second fastest time in FP2 behind Valentino Rossi, was very confident in the chances for the #55 Fuchs Lubricants Audi.
“Definitely – I’ve got more in the tank. Today we’ve been driving my sessions on secondhand tyres and with a full fuel capacity to simulate what I’ll be doing through the race.
“We should be able to push a little harder on a green tyre.”
With plenty of quality Ams in the field matched with seasoned Professional drivers, all bets are off in the final stages of the race!
‘Students on Track’
Over 800 school students from the local area were invited for a school excursion on Friday, taking in the sights and sounds of the Bathurst 12 Hour. As part of the experience, the students were guided through the pit lane, shown through some garages, and were able to take in views from Murray’s Corner and the roof of the Pit complex.
“All of those kids got to see Track to Town yesterday,” said Event Director Shane Rudiz. “We drove past the schools, with all the flags waving, and the looks on their faces – they couldn’t believe it.
“They get to come, as part of their curriculum, to the track today to go and have a look at what happens at Bathurst… It’s about the fans of the future.”
By the sounds of the students in the paddock and on the spectator bankings, they were all thoroughly enjoying the opportunity!
