LEADING Australian GT racer Peter Hackett says Mercedes Benz officials are currently in Germany considering their participation in the 2012 Armor All Bathurst 12 Hour, following an exploratory trip to Australia for the 2011 Bathurst 1000 V8 Supercar race.
Hackett’s Erebus Racing team are currently investigating the possibility of entering their current Mercedes Benz SLS AMG GT3-spec racer in the February 24-26 Event and are keen to secure the support of the factory, that could potentially bring more Mercedes entries from Europe join a concerted attack against the returning Audi’s.
Audi and Mercedes are traditional German rivals in the DTM (German Touring Cars) however Audi have Bathurst bragging rights after their emphatic 1-2 effort this year.
“As a team we would be happy to enter but if we do it we want to do it properly,” Hackett explained.
“We had two guys down from Germany at the weekend assessing the local GT scene, the circuit and how our very young Erebus Racing team is going. They are naturally very cautious but they have gone back to Europe to discuss their plans for Australia.
“Ideally we would enter our car and then have one or more customer cars from Europe join us here in a multi-car team. Certainly it is a bonus having a GT Championship round at the Clipsal 500 the week after so they have two high profile Events in the space of a short amount of time.”
Hackett won the first of two GT races held at the Bathurst V8 Supercar weekend, though a gamble for wet tyres on a drying circuit cost the former Formula 3 champion a result in the second race. Nevertheless, the Sydneysider was pleased with the performance of the thundering V8-powered Gullwing coupe’ on its Mountain debut.
“This year our car is running in a restricted state as it’s a later model car than the others currently in Australian GT racing,” he explained.
“But even with those limitations it was an excellent package on the Mountain. They are a fantastic car and really well suited to the track. We had good pace all weekend and were able to bring home a win in the first race which was a great result.”
He went on to explain the process from here on in as his team looks to join the growing ranks of top-level GT machinery from Australia and abroad investigating an Armor All Bathurst 12 hour campaign.
“We are assessing everything, as every team does when committing to a major Event like this,” he said.
“Things like budgets, parity, driver seeding and rules and regulations are all being discussed between our team and the Event management at the moment.
“Once we have a clear understanding of that we will be better placed on making a decision, however we are certainly looking at it very closely and are keen to have Erebus Racing and Mercedes represented on the Mountain next February.”
Creventic, the company engaged by Armor All Bathurst 12 Hour promoters to increase international participation, has already received several entries and expressions of interest from teams keen to compete on Mount Panorama in February next year.
Already cars from Ferrari, Audi, Lamborghini and BMW are confirmed and entered for the race.
The 2012 Armor All Bathurst 12 Hour will be contested on February 24-26, 2012 and will feature an action-packed program including four strong support categories; Sports Sedans, Saloon Cars, Formula Ford and Improved Production.