The Tekno Autosports McLaren 650S GT3 has raced away with victory at the 2016 Bathurst 12 Hour in a thrilling race which saw five different manufacturers, including Bentley, leading throughout.
Prior to race day, four examples of the 650S GT3 qualified in the top six with the Tekno Autosports entrant taking police position thanks to a new lap record set by Shane Van Gisbergen.
When the race started early Sunday morning, Van Gisbergen quickly opened up a lead and set another official course lap of 2:01.567. Throughout the preceding hours, the Tekno Autosports 650S GT3 remained near the front with Alvaro Parente and Jonathon Webb also jumping being the wheel for their stints.
Van Gisbergen took over the reigns for the final stint of the thrilling enduro in fourth place but thanks to a well-calculated pitstop strategy, the 650S managed to leapfrog the leaders and come home victorious by 1.276 seconds.
As for the other three 650S GT3s in the race, the #60 came home in ninth overall while both the Objective Racing and Darrell Lea/Keltic Racing cars failed to finish following separate crashes.
Discussing the win, driver and Tekno Autosports team owner Jonathon Webb said:
“Winners of the Bathurst 12 Hour – that is something that will take a little while to sink in. It is a great result for McLaren and massive for Tekno, especially as it was our debut outing together. We faced some real challenges over the course of the weekend, but we pulled together and I am really proud of the guys who have worked faultlessly to achieve this result. Any endurance race is a true challenge, and it is not an easy race to win first time out – you just have to look at the quality of the competition and how close the racing was from the first to the last minute.”
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