Whitehead then put in a stunning stint, eating into Andrea Capoccia’s lead in the Ferrari and also pitting one lap later to hand over the car to Maciej Malinowski in the race lead. Sherratt wouldn’t take long to retake first and, along with Chris Harteveld in the next stint, Ferrari built up almost a 30-second advantage ahead of the McLaren.
Approaching the halfway mark though, Ferrari’s race fell apart. The slightest of errors from Capoccia put the 296 into the wall at Skyline, picking up significant damage which saw the lead erode to almost nothing by the time he pitted for repairs and to hand over to Sherratt. However, the team would then also pick up a five-second penalty for a pit-lane infringement.
If that wasn’t quite enough to hand McLaren the victory, Sherratt then collected another ten-second penalty after a coming-together with the Williams car again, and at The Chase again. This time Blajer was the victim, and the stewards took a dim view despite Sherratt ceding the place back a few turns later.
Although still the fastest car on track, Ferrari couldn’t catch up to McLaren, with the British marque taking victory by a relatively comfortable ten-second margin. A solid performance from the works Lamborghini outfit saw them coming home in third after avoiding all drama throughout the race.
Intercontinental GT Challenge Esports Bathurst 12hr Results
1. Boothby/Kareckas/Malinowski/Whitehead (McLaren Veloce – McLaren 720S GT3) – 349 laps
2. Capoccia/Harteveld/Riley/Sherratt (Scuderia Ferrari – Ferrari 296 GT3) +10.322
3. Crupi/Losio/Santoro/Tonizza (Lamborghini– Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2) +25.824