Auer Takes Bathurst 12H Pole

Photo: Gruppe C Photography/SRO

Lucas Auer has claimed the Allan Simonsen Pole Award after storming to pole position for Sunday’s Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour.

Auer, in the No. 77 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, reeled off a best lap of 2:01.276 in the 15-minute Pirelli Pole Battle at Mount Panorama to edge out the No. 183 Jamec Racing/Team MPC Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Ricardo Feller by 0.125 seconds.

It marked Auer’s first pole for the Intercontinental GT Challenge season opener, as well as for the Hong Kong-based Craft-Bamboo squad.

Auer will share driving duties in tomorrow’s race with fellow Mercedes-AMG factory drivers Maxi Goetz and Jayden Ojeda.

Maro Engel, whose track qualifying record from 2023 remains unbeaten, qualified third in his No. 888 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG, with Sheldon van der Linde fourth in the No. 32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3.

Van der Linde completed only two flying laps after electing to sit out the first half of the session in the pit lane, a similar strategy that netted him the pole last year.

Chaz Mostert completed the top-five in his No. 26 Arise Racing GT Ferrari 296 GT3.

Sixth went to Bathurst rookie Laurin Heinrich in the Pro-Am class pole-sitting No. 91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R, ahead of SunEnergy1 Racing’s Lucas Stolz in seventh.

Scott Andrews, Cameron Waters and Lee Holdsworth rounded out the top-ten.

The Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour gets underway Sunday at 5:45 a.m. local time (Saturday, 1:45 p.m. ET) with live coverage on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel.

RESULTS: Pirelli Pole Battle