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Mount Panorama Circuit

Motorsport

Thoughts on the 2024 Bathurst 6 Hour on SBS, TCR World Tour not coming back to Australia at least for this year & Matt White calling Supercars again this time on radio

by Sports Benches

The 2024 Bathurst 6 Hour race will be aired on SBS (yes, on the main channel) during the Easter long weekend since this event has been run and sold separately by Australian Racing Group & not Motorsport Australia who looks after SpeedSeries. The last two Bathurst 6 Hour editions in 2022-23 was covered by Nine and Stan Sport where there was a bit of free-to-air access with the following week race highlights as well as live qualifying only last year. However, the race itself was only paywalled via Stan Sport before Motorsport Australia took back media rights control off ARG at the end of last season that saw the end of Nine/Stan covering SpeedSeries on what has been an underwhelming paid and free TV experiment, with Seven now back onboard again for all races being live & free throughout the year. It will basically be a full endurance race that runs for a few hours throughout Sunday from 11.30am to 6pm with qualifying on the day beforehand alongside a couple of other production car support categories into play including the Australian Formula Ford open-wheel series. Like SpeedSeries, I’m sure it will be a great event if you want to tune in for motorsport on the TV throughout the Easter weekend.

Speaking of SBS, they are back for another season of the Australian Superbike Championship where Chris Vermeulen will be replacing Kate Peck as the host/reporter while retaining every race highlights of the World Superbike Championship that will air the following weekend after the race (if you wish to watch the live races, it’s on Fox Sports via Foxtel and Kayo Sports) and of course the main Speedweek show too on Sunday afternoons.

Speaking of Bathurst, the Bathurst International may still go ahead later this November to round off the 2024 SpeedSeries season but unfortunately the best of the TCR drivers from around the world won’t be back here including the Sydney Motorsports Park round now being cancelled despite originally planning to do so. It’s a shame but the ongoing shipping delays worldwide has saw the organisers that run the TCR World Tour skip Australia just for this year. There is hope though of having Australia v the best of the World rivalry back again at our own backyard only at Mount Panorama in Bathurst for 2025.

And last but not least, Matt White has a new motorsports media job coming up and he will now be commentating the Supercars races on radio for SEN starting this weekend with the Bathurst 500 season-opening race alongside experienced Supercars driver James Moffatt as the expert/colour commentator. He has been in this business for a long time when he first started his career at Ten back in the early 90s, then moved to Seven between 2004-14, back to Ten for another few years until mid-2020, later appeared on Nine for the first time over the last two years via Stan Sport for SpeedSeries before the competition moved back to Seven & now he’s back behind the mic again this time for radio in Supercars. Don’t forget he’s done a lot of stuff with SEN since he left Ten again like hosting his own daily sports talk show during weekday mornings including rugby league and cricket commentary. So still plenty to offer, especially when he returned to commentary for a short time filling-in for Richard Craill late last year in the Australian Trans-Am Series. We wish him all the best in his new role.

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Motorsport

2022 Bathurst 6 Hour: The front row BMW overall lead battle tops the charts where Tom Sargent & Cameron Hill overcame a post-qualifying infringement from the very back in 63rd to conquer Mount Panorama

by Sports Benches

This year’s Bathurst 6 Hour at Mount Panorama Circuit was extraordinary to watch, even though the start time was pushed back by half an hour to 11.45 AM AEST due to the fog, where 63 cars fought for every track position across multiple categories.

The No.40 BMW M4 trio of Karl Begg/David Russell/Aaron Norris launched this race from pole position instead of Tom Sargent/Cam Hill in the No.147 BMW M2 following a post-qualifying infringement during inspection (ride height). However, it doesn’t mean their chances of winning are near impossible for the No.147 Tegra Australia team when they made their way from very back to the Top 3-4 as it goes on.

Then we saw a couple of yellows via a series of spins, mechanical failures & wrecks came up that gave the No.147 BMW team some confidence ahead of these restarts; but at the same time, it was a blow for the No.40 Btuned Euro BMW M4 when the pole sitters forced to stop the car on the start/finish straight. Although we saw a couple of competitors escape some twists and turns that almost bit them out of the race, which was lucky to survive & continued racing at the Mountain.

But the big storyline of this race has been the BMW front row battle; it’s just Brad Carr/Tim Slade in the No.8 Car Mods Australia-backed M3 model; against Sargent/Hill in the No.147 Tegra Australia M2 Competition machinery. Both competitors shared the overall race lead thus far before we witnessed the winning move of this Bathurst 6 Hour race with 20 minutes to go on the clock. Slade & Hill went side-by-side before Hill nudged past Slade on the outside line at Brock’s Skyline (Turn 11 of 23) & eventually held off top spot for the win, which led to an overwhelming reaction back in the No.147 team’s pit garage.

How great was it when Tom Sargent/Cam Hill conquered the Mountain from the very back of the grid!

It’s also good to see Garry Rogers Motorsport’s TCR Australia driver Dylan O’Keeffe take home the A1 class win in 4th overall with Mike Sheargold in the No.45 Mercedes AMG for RAM/GWR. And the same goes with TV personality & reigning Dancing with the Stars Australia Champion Grant Denyer, who won the A2 Class in 8th overall with co-driver Tony Quinn in the No.7 Local Legends Ford Mustang.

If you want to relive the 6-hour race both in full length and bitesize, watch it on ad-free Stan Sport right now at any time if you haven’t already got a subscription. Otherwise, Nine will be showcasing the weekend’s ARG SpeedSeries event from Mount Panorama in a two-hour highlights package via their Free TV Channels on Saturday AM from 11.30-13.30 (9Gem) & Sunday Afternoon from 13.30 to 15.30 (9Go).

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Motorsport

2022 ARG SpeedSeries on Saturday at Bathurst: Nathan Herne wins back to back in the Trans-Am while Peugeots filled up the podium spots in Race 1 & Bailey Sweeny wins Race 2 over at the TCR Australia

by Sports Benches

Nathan Herne is unstoppable in the No.1 Ford Mustang for Garry Rogers Motorsports after he collected two from two wins today so far at Mount Panorama. He never looked out of pace on race day when he passed Tim Brook immediately and held off ever since, even though he wasn’t fastest in any of the practice & qualifying sessions as the cautions didn’t bother him. We love this Herne v Brook side-by-side rivalry. And shoutout to Herne’s team-mate Owen Kelly, who finished 4th in Race 1 just behind No.03 Ford’s Ben Grice, before he took advantage of Grice’s DNF (gearbox issue) the next race & scored the final podium spot in 3rd.

Then we turned our attention to TCR Australia, with Jordan Cox fastest in both practice sessions in the No.33 Peugeot 308 yesterday. Although, he was unlucky not to continue in 3rd when he had to stop his car on top of the penalty that precluded him from starting on the front row before Race 1. Cox’s team-mate Aaron Cameron stole the show with a comfortable Race 1 spell from start to finish, followed by another set of Peugeots rounding the other two podium spots from Ben Bargwanna (No. 71 Burson) & Dylan O’Keeffe (No. 8 GRM).

In the end, though, we witnessed a different winner on Race 2 in Bailey Sweeny over at the No. 130 Hyundai i30N for HNO Customer Racing. Now he may have been unable to get around Michael Caruso at the start from reverse 2nd, having finished 9th in the previous race earlier this afternoon. However, you have to praise his patience as this race goes on when Sweeny finally passed Caruso side-by-side at the Chase (Turn 20); that turned out to be a winning move before Sweeny got to celebrate on top of the podium for the first time.

Race 3 of the Trans-Am and TCR will take place on a bright and early tomorrow morning, before it’s all about the 6-hour feature race in Bathurst.

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Motorsport

Thoughts on Stan Sport and Nine Network acquiring more motorsport on Australian Racing Group’s SpeedSeries

by Sports Benches

Huge progress from Stan Sport and the Nine Network today with their Motorsports content, not only they added Formula E last week in addition to IndyCar, World Rally Championship & World Endurance Championship but they also just secured the Australian Racing Group’s SpeedSeries competition.

But it won’t be the same though unlike previous TV deals with SBS and Seven Network, when all seven races throughout 2022 will be behind a paywall on Stan Sport. Meanwhile, Nine will air the opening race live at Symmons Plains in Tasmania next weekend alongside one-hour highlights shows a week later after every round.

It’s good news if you’re a Motorsports fan willing to pay $20 a month for all of the auto racing/motoring content Stan can offer that includes a new season of same day Top Gear episodes. However, not only they will have to wait one week to watch the remaining round’s highlights for free but even though some subscribed to Stan Sport, they may have to fork out another $25 a month at Kayo for Formula 1, Supercars & MotoGP.

Then there’s the beauty of competition in a bid to try and boost subscribers when the Formula 1 rights are up for renewal at the end of this year in Australia, Kayo/Foxtel have been reported several times as the winner to extend their contract that goes back to 2015 with Network 10 but it’s still not official just yet.

If Nine/Stan managed to beat Foxtel for the Formula 1 rights, it will work out a similar mix of free and paid content model such as every race live on Stan plus the Australian Grand Prix and a few selected races simulcasted on Nine.

For now, Motorsport is back on Nine since the World Rally Championship was previously there during the Australian Round a few years ago.

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