One lap wonder! WRT’s Van der Linde romps to Repco Bathurst 12 Hour pole

Sheldon van der Linde, Team WRT and BMW required just one lap to bag pole position for the Repco Bathurst 12 Hour, which kicks off this year’s Intercontinental GT Challenge campaign on Sunday.

The South African earned the right to contest the Pirelli Top-10 Shootout by first beating his co-driver Dries Vanthoor in a game of rock, paper, scissors prior to qualifying! Third place then saw him advance to the showdown where a 2m01.9810s proved unbeatable.

Indeed, so confident were WRT that Van der Linde immediately pitted and watched on as the likes of Broc Feeney, Maro Engel, Luca Stolz and Jordan Love attempted to beat the time.

Feeney had earlier topped qualifying with a lap marginally quicker than SVDL’s Shootout benchmark but couldn’t replicate it in the final 15-minute session. He and National Storage Racing’s Triple Eight-run Mercedes-AMG therefore start in the same position as last year after ultimately falling 0.256s shy of the BMW’s best.

But he did, at least, exact some revenge on Engel who beat him to pole 12 months ago. The German and GruppeM line up third after lapping another two tenths slower than Van der Linde.

Matt Campbell set the pace in Group 1 and was also quicker than both Stolz and Love en route to fourth in Manthey EMA’s ‘Grello’ Porsche.

Stolz, meanwhile, recorded the fifth fastest time overall in the same SunEnergy1 Mercedes-AMG with which he, Kenny Habul and Jules Gounon won last season.

MPC’s Audis occupy sixth and seventh after Ricardo Feller narrowly edged out Kelvin van der Linde in Group 1, while WRT’s second BMW – driven by Maxime Martin – starts eighth overall.

Manthey EMA’s previous generation Porsche and Triple Eight JMR’s Mercedes-AMG start as the leading Pro-Am contenders on row five.