Auer takes pole for Mercedes

Lucas Auer has taken pole position for the Bathurst 12 Hour for Mercedes.

The Austrian, who took provisional pole in the split qualifying sessions, lapped the Mount Panorama track in a time of 2m01.2760s in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo he will share with Maximilian Gotz and Jayden Ojeda.

After such a close first part of qualifying in which the top five cars were split by 0.136s, Auer’s gap of 0.125s over the rest of the field was a relatively dominant margin ahead of another Bathurst rookie in Ricardo Feller.

The 24-year-old Swiss led the Audi charge and he will start second in the #183 Jamec Racing entry he will share with Supercars driver Broc Feeney and Australian GT champion Liam Talbot.

Maro Engel had an unusual session on the way to third on the grid, the two-time pole winner parking the #888 Team GMR Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, which he shares with Mikael Grenier and Maxime Martin, as he didn’t set a lap time until the second half of the short session.

Fourth place went to last year’s polesitter Sheldon van der Linde in the first of the BMW M4 GT3s, the #32 which he co-drives with his brother Kelvin van der Linde and Augusto Farfus.

Fifth was Supercars star Chaz Mostert in the #26 Arise Racing Ferrari, who just made it into the top 10 after the earlier qualifying sessions.

Sixth came the first Porsche though it was not the one many were expecting, as it was Bathurst rookie Laurin Heinrich who was consistently the fastest of the 911 GT3 Rs in the #91 entry he shares with Morris Schuring and bronze drivers Sam and Yasser Shahin.

Last year’s runner-up starts seventh following Luca Stolz’s effort in the #75 Express Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, while eighth was an impressive effort from Scott Andrews, the Texas-domiciled Australian making his first start in the event. He will share the #44 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II with team regulars Marcel Zalloua and Sergio Pires.

Scott Taylor grabbed ninth in the #222 Motorsport Mercedes-AMG of Cam Waters/Thomas Randle/Craig Lowndes, ahead of the third of the Audis, the #09 Lee Holdsworth/Dean Fiore/Marc Cini entry in 10th.

While one Porsche will start the race from close to the front, the other more fancied entry of Matt Campbell in the #911 Absolute Racing entry will start from 11th, after the defending race winner missed out on making the top 10 in qualifying by 0.088s.

The other car that was expected to make the top 10 but failed was the #46 WRT BMW, in which Raffaele Marciello looked strong early in the first session, before had to pit early for his team to investigate the car’s overheating issue so faded to 12th place.

The 2025 Bathurst 12 Hour will be live on Motorsport.tv.