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Heavy Crash Curtails Bathurst 6 Practice
Final practice for the 2025 Hi-Tec Oils Bathurst 6 Hour has proven effectively a write-off, with not a single representative lap time set.
Of the 195 drivers entered, 15 headed into today still needing to set a lap within 130 percent of the fastest time to be eligible to race – with Thomas Randle among them after enduring mechanical gremlins yesterday.
But after a mostly uninterrupted couple of Friday practice sessions, it didn’t take long for trouble to strike on Saturday morning.
The first red flag came six minutes in, the #142 Class D Honda Integra of Shayne Nowickyj nestled up against the wall on driver’s left at Griffins Bend.
A quarter of the 40-minute session was lost before the action resumed – but not for long.
This time, a more serious incident appeared the cause for the stoppage, a collision having occurred between Michael Auld (#24) and Brett Osborn (#2) down Mountain Straight.
Auld is in a Class X BMW M3 alongside son Hayden and four-time Bathurst 1000 starter Tyler Everingham, while Osborn is sharing a Class D BMW 125i with Andrew McMaster and Luke Harrison.
Such was the clean-up required that the session did not resume.
That left the #7 Audi of Daniel Natoli/Stuart Gamble/Anthony Levitt on top, with an unrepresentative 8m01.6373s lap.
Next up for the 6 Hour field is two-part qualifying, with the bottom 36 cars from combined practice times going out for an initial 20-minute burst starting 1:05pm before the top 36 take centre stage from 1:35pm.
One car is on standby should any of the #2, #24 or #142 be forced to withdraw. That reserve is the Ford Mustang of Graham Cheney, Tim Brook and Jarrod Hughes. They stepped back pre-event to allow Alice Buckley, Hayden Hume and Tyler Cheney to make the grid.
Coverage provided by V8 Sleuth