History has been made in the 2024 Hi-Tec Oils Bathurst 6 Hour with Jayden Ojeda and Simon Hodges the first two drivers to ever win consecutive events.
Joined by experienced driver George Miedecke for the popular production endurance race, Ojeda and Hodges managed to replicate last year’s victory thanks to brilliant strategy and smart racing.
With just under 60 cars lining up on Sunday, the trio ended up steering the Secure Wealth Advisers BMW M4 to a thrilling victory over the BMW M2 Coupe of Thomas Randle, Michael Kavich and Ben Kavich, while Will Davison, Beric Lynton and Tim Leahey made it a BMW podium lockout after the polesitters crossed the line in third.
Adding to the historic edition of the race, less than one and a half seconds separated the top three cars – making it the closest finish ever finish in 6 Hour history.
Starting from the second row after a dramatic conclusion to Saturday’s qualifying session, which was won by Will Davison, the Miedecke #1 BMW’s victory came off the back of a unique strategy that saw them complete a flurry of pit stops in the early stages of the race.
The decision to complete their compulsory pit stops early put them in a strong position towards the back half of the race, which saw Ojeda gain the lead from Davison just inside the final 30 minutes.
From that point onwards, Ojeda navigated his way past a number of backmarkers and produced a faultless drive to claim the historic victory.
Just behind him, the battle for second was decided by just two tenths of a second as Randle held off Davison at the final corner to make it to the finish line in second place.
Randle had worked his way into second place after overtaking Davison 12 minutes from the end after a sensational piece of driving saw him charging past on the grass at Conrod Straight to edge past.
Rounding out the top five were two class winning cars with the fourth placed Iain Salteri and Cem Yucel taking out the A1 class in their Volkswagen Golf R, and the Ford Mustang Mach 1 of Aaron Seton, Jason Gomersall and Benjamin Gomersall winning the A2 class.
With the event seeing a record-breaking 12 Safety Car Interventions, as 21 cars failed to finish the event, there was plenty of drama up and down the field and within each class.
Taking out the final spot in the top 10 were B class winners Courtney Prince, Karlie Buccini and Suzanne Palermo and five places below the historic all-woman team were C class winners Matt Slavin and Pieter Faulkner in a Holden Astra HSV VXR.
Just behind the C class winners were a trio of D Class drivers with Tim Barwick and Mitchell Wooller guiding their Toyota 86 to the class victory at P16 overall.
Claiming the final class victory in comfortable fashion were E Class winners Mark Taubitz, Andrew Jackman and Jamie Westaway in their Mazda 3 SP25.
View the full results here.