New Carrera Cup cars given green light for Bathurst

The 991.2 GT3 Cup Cars, which debuted in the Australian Carrera Cup series this year, will be eligible to run in Class B with other generation cars from the one-make Porsche series.

“Porsche is excited to provide its Carrera Cup customers the opportunity to race their latest generation 911 GT3 Cup cars at next year’s Bathurst 12 Hour,” said Troy Bundy, Porsche Cars Australia Motorsport Manager.

“In contrast to Carrera Cup’s tradition sprint and endurance formats, this initiative will enable our customers to experience their 911 GT3 Cup race cars in a full endurance setting – including pitstops, co-drivers and providing more racing laps in their 911 race car separate to their Carrera Cup campaigns.

“Porsche has been the best-represented manufacturer in the past six Bathurst 12 Hour events and this announcement will no doubt further boost the brand’s presence at the Mount Panorama sportscar enduro.”

Bathurst organisers have also made some tweaks to the Class A structure regarding driver classification. While it will still continue to be split in three sub-classes – Pro, Pro-Am, and Am – Pro teams will now been limited to just three seeded Platinum or Gold drivers, having up until this year been able to use up to four.

Pro-Am Crew will be limited to a maximum two seeded drivers joined by either one or two Bronze-ranked drivers, or one seeded driver an one Silver driver along with a Bronze driver.

The Am class, meanwhile, will be strictly limited to Bronze-ranked drivers for the first time.

There are no changes to Class C (for GT4 cars) or Class I (Invitational).

Crews will be given extra track time across the 2019 Bathurst 12 Hour weekend, with the event now spanning four days rather than three.

It all kicks off on January 31 with the race itself on February 3.