Valmont team confirm return adventure in 2024

Valmont Racing, headed up by long time friends, work colleagues and teammates Marcel Zalloua and Sergio Pires, have confirmed their place for next year ahead of Early Bird entries closing on October 31.

The popular Sydney-based entry, prepared by Tigani Motorsport, were one of the standout performers in the early running of the 2023 event.

With Zalloua and Pires joined by Duvashen Padayachee and Aaron Cameron, the team surprised in qualifying by being the only Silver class entry to make the Pirelli Shootout on Saturday afternoon.

Qualifying their Mercedes AMG GT3 a superb seventh, the team ran strongly in the opening hours of the race before an unfortunate accident approaching the Dipper ended their day just before the three and a half hour mark.

Despite the disappointment, Zalloua confirmed the team would return in 2024, this time in their Audi R8 LMS Ultra.

“Bathurst is such a challenging place and it got us good this year,” he said.

“We had such a fantastic weekend to that point, making the shootout and mixing it up with some of the best GT teams and drivers in the world, and then running really well on Sunday – but that’s the sport and that race.

“We had to come back, we couldn’t not be there after the way this year ended so we want to get back into it and have another go.

“It will be Sergio and I driving and we’re still working through a number of options for our third driver.”

The team made waves this year for a striking livery on their Mercedes AMG, a stunning blue, pink, yellow and black design that has been carried over to the Audi.

However, Zalloua hinted that the team wasn’t settled on their 2024 livery choice.

“We’re working on several concepts. We had such a great response to the livery, the posters and everything around the look of the team in 2023 so we need to keep raising the bar!

“We’ve got a couple of pretty interesting ideas that should create quite an impact..”

Early Bird entries for the 2024 Bathurst 12 Hour close on 31 October, while entries close on Friday 15 December.

Current entry numbers are tracking ahead of the same point last year, with another diverse and world-class field set to tackle the Mountain in 2024.