No. 84 Porsche earns eighth place in Bathurst 12 Hour

Panorama called iRacing GT3 teams from all around the world for the annual Bathurst 12 Hour this weekend. Among the teams that took the call: Fischer Motorsport.

The team and drivers Niclas Pedersen, Manuel Mayer and Benjamin Fischer traveled halfway around the world to team up in the quest to “tame the mountain” and compete in the endurance classic.

Making headlines in the days leading up to the event was the balance of performance released by iRacing for this race. The Porsche started out at a disadvantage, even more so later after it was slowed even further by the final BoP adjustment by iRacing.

“We don’t really know what went into this. I’m sure the folks at iRacing have their processes and reasons. But yeah, for us this is a bit of a head scratcher. The Porsche was at a disadvantage as it was. But then during the week, they reduced the power even more. It truly baffles us. We’ll try to adjust and do our best as always, and we’ll compete with everything we got. But truthfully, we believe the balance of performance is not fair, just as it wasn’t last year.”, Fischer Motorsport founder Benjamin Fischer said.

Last year’s edition saw a flawless drive by the team end up still five laps down from the competition, as the Porsche 911 GT3 R was hopeless down on pace.

Fast forward to this weekend: Saturday morning local time, at 5:45 am, the green flag - though barely visible in the dark - waved and the sixth annual iRacing Bathurst 12 Hour went under way.

Niclas Pedersen qualified the No. 84 Porsche 911 GT3 R in third place - an amazing accomplishment even by the most optimistic expectations, considering the balance of performance.

The top-five qualifiers were all within a couple of tenth of a second, creating questions whether the balance of performance perhaps was not as bad as anticipated.

However, the race proved to be a different story. Pedersen started strong, was able to take second position briefly, but ultimately had to face reality that the competition, especially so the Ferrari 488 GT3.

“I tried to keep up as best as possible. But it was just hopeless. They pulled away on the straight, even when we were directly in their slipstream. But I’ll say this: Our setup was awesome. The handling in the uphill section between Cutting and Dipper was incredible.”, Pedersen explained.

Two hours in, Pedersen was holding sixth position and Benjamin Fischer took over for his first double stint. The 38-year old Leipzig, Germany driver made his first competitive endurance event since August 2022 when he competed in the iRacing 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Consequently, Fischer showed to be a bist rusty and the team lost ground during his first stint. In his second stint, things went better but the team still dropped to the bottom of the top ten.

After Fischer, it was now Manuel Mayer taking on the steering wheel for his double stint. The 34-year old showed great consistency like all three drivers did throughout the entire race and kept the team within striking distance of the top ten.

The race saw very few serious incidents and overall very high quality of racing. On lap 208 Pedersen made a daring pass on another competitor, moving into eighth place.

In the end, it all came down to the fuel usage games and strategy. Thanks to a perfect strategy, the team was able to compete for seventh place, but had to take into account a potential extra lap, before the white flag would show.

Crossing the line just a car length behind seventh place, the No. 84 Porsche finished the race in P8, easily marking one of the best ever runs of Fischer Motorsport in the endurance classic.

“Ben and Niclas and the whole team were fantastic. I had a lot of fun. We had some setup issues early in the week, which had me worried a bit, I’ll admit. But we worked through it and really ran a perfect race. No incidents, no damage, no technical failures. What else can you ask for?”, Mayer said.

“I’m just happy to race again. It was a lot of fun for sure. But man, I wish we could have started pushing a little earlier in that final stint, so we could catch P7. So close!”, Benjamin Fischer said.

“Yeah, I think one more lap, I would have been in the slipstream in striking distance. We had to play it safe during the early part of the final stint, because we didn’t know if we’d have to run an extra lap. We could have gambled, but didn’t want to lose P8 if we did.”, Pedersen said.

“The car definitely was fun to drive, but it’s tough when you run a clean, perfect race and give it all you have, and teams that rack up several car contacts and stuff still wind up two laps ahead of you, also because of the balance of performance. It’s not a good look. Hopefully this will be fixed for next year.”, Pedersen added.

© 2023 Fischer Motorsport Official Race Results - 2023 iRacing Bathurst 12 Hour