The Ferrari 488 GT3 of Spirit of Race, crewed by Paul Dalla Lana, Mathias Lauda and Pedro Lamy won the Pro-Am class in the 2019 edition of the Bathurst 12 Hours, the first round of the SRO International GT Challenge championship.
Extreme race. The value of Ferrari's victory in the hard-fought professional and gentlemen drivers’ class is all the greater given the extreme weather conditions. Starting at dawn in Australia, the race quickly turned into a marathon for men and vehicles, with very few neutralisations (over 100 laps and seven hours with no Safety Car) and very high temperatures of up 43 degrees centigrade. Paul Dalla Lana, Mathias Lauda and Pedro Lamy put in a flawless performance, making up 24 positions on the qualifying session to finish in ninth place. The advantage of almost two laps over their nearest pursuers, Hazelwood-Lago-Russell in the Audi of Matt Stone Racing's, also says a lot about the quality of the performance of the Spirit of Race team.
HubAuto Corsa. On the other side, the HubAuto Corsa crew of Nick Foster, Tim Slade and Nick Percat in the other Ferrari, had a trickier race right from the off. The 488 GT3 no. 27 was in fact involved in an accident with a slower car before the two-hour mark. The time taken to recover and repair the car knocked the HubAuto Corsa crew out of the running. After restarting they eventually they crossed the line in 18th. The overall victory went to the Porsche of Earl Bamber Motorsport with Werner-Olsen-Campbell.