BMW's victory double at Bathurst, Rossi on the podium

      the 12-hour race at Australia's famous Bathurst circuit ended today with a victory double for Team WRT - its drivers drive BMW M4 GT3s. The Belgian team, consisting of brothers Kelvin and Sheldon van der Linde, South African drivers, and Augusto Farfus, Brazilian endurance master, won the race. The BMW with the number 46, traditionally driven by Valentino Rossi, the nine-time world motorcycle racing champion now pursuing a career in GT, finished second. On the final stretch of the course, the winning trio's car was piloted by Kelvin van der Linde, who had to save fuel to get to the finish line, as this was the WRT tactic. He acted calmly when he was overtaken by the Ferrari of Arise Racing, because 20 minutes before the end of the race it turned into the boxes, and Kelvin was the first to see the checkered flag. 10 seconds later his teammates crossed the finish line - crew #46, for which together with Valentino Rossi are Raffaele Marcello and the young Belgian driver Charles Veerts.

      This race was the season opener in the Intercontinental GT Challenge series, and the victory of Kelvin and Sheldon van der Linde was the first such achievement for a crew consisting of siblings in 28 years: in 1997 the Bathurst 1000 Super Touring race on this track was won by David and Jeff Brabham.

      the "12 Hours of Bathurst" were somewhat overshadowed by a serious accident in which 57-year-old Australian Stephen Grove, a veteran of the Supercars series, was injured: the incident occurred shortly after the start of the marathon, when his Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo collided with the same car of another driver in the Skyline corner. The contact was quite strong, after which the car crashed into the barrier and flew into the air. Grove got out of the car on his own, but was sent to hospital where an examination revealed a spinal injury. The stewards deemed the incident a racing incident, so Kenny Habul, who was piloting the second car, was not fined. It was his crew, which also includes Jules Gounon and Luca Stolz, that took the 3rd place in the race. Returning to Team WRT, it is worth adding that the drivers of this Belgian team won all three marathons held since the beginning of the year: before Bathurst there were the 24 Hours of Dubai and the 6 Hours of Abu Dhabi.