Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan52
Have to think that both the IGTC and the Bathurst 12 Hour are at the end of the road.
The Bathurst entry is 22 cars
-6 from overseas.5 GT and 1 Invitational
-10 Australian GT3 cars of which 8 are Mercs
-6 Australian grid fillers.3 GT4 and 3 MARCS
That is really lame and so far away from the golden years of 2015 to 2020 it doesn’t seem like the same event.
Ratel has said they needed to get back to 15-20 international cars to make the series viable.After last years 29 car field with 5 overseas cars he was confident we’d get there.Instead this.
Once that meagre international component goes you are left with what is nearly a one make 10 car GT field.
For those golden years the 12 Hour was my second favourite Australian motor racing event behind only Albert Park.Now it feels like it needs to be put down and out of its misery.
Given the way Ratel has binned IGTC rounds with much stronger fields than this -see Abu Dhabi- I am looking at this year as my final chance to see any international GT teams.
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The issue with Bathrust is that is very close to Asian Le Mans Series which guarantees the invitation to Le Mans - I expect more teams would prioritise that and for teams from Europe is easier to travel to middle east than all the way to Australia. Look how healthy the entry list is for the Asian Le mans Series. Furthermore some of these teams are already in the Middle East for the Creventic Series. The truncated AsLMS season in Feb has affected Bathurst
Also if I am not mistaken, the WEC prologue is the week after Bathurst this year? Meaning even WEC teams that are not in AsLMS find it difficult to do Bathurst and then be back to Qatar.
Mind you I do not mind a small entry list for Bathurst if the entry is quality! Too many cars could lead to too many saftey car periods which break the flow of racing. There is a balance between too many and too little entries. I am just not sure what that is
Also finally a lot of new GT3s this year that are not yet SRO homologated - so maybe once the Corvette, Mustang, Aston get homologated there might be more entries for next year