Groves to move up for 12 hour

Friday 29 November, 2019

After four Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour class wins, Grove Racing will step up into the outright class at next year’s event.

The move comes off the back of a successful appearance at the inaugural FIA Motorsport Games in November where the duo picked up a bronze medal in the GT category.

The Melbourne-based team will once again team up with British sportscar ace Ben Barker and drive a Porsche 911 GT3 R for the 12-hour race, as well as work alongside German squad Herberth Motorsport.

With the team’s entry to be part of the Pro-Am category within the broader GT3 class, Brenton Grove was thrilled with the new partnership with the German team.

"We have a technical partnership with Herberth who bring their experience within the Porsche GT3 R program," Brenton explained.

"It will be a joint partnership with them, running under the Grove Racing banner and with the support of some local talent as well.

"Herberth's head engineer will come over as crew chief and work alongside their regular German mechanics and our local engineers, John Russell and Jarrod Bowles."

It’s not the first time Russell and Bowles will be working with the Groves, with the two engineers part of the Grove’s class win earlier this year and Brenton’s Dunlop Super2 Series season.

With the duo back in Australia after heading up Jaguar Racing’s Formula E program for Williams Advanced Engineering in the UK, as well as Barker being a regular in the FIA World Endurance Championship, Brenton was excited about bringing the gang back together after all enjoying international success.

"Those guys are hugely experienced both with the team and long-distance races at Mount Panorama," Brenton added.

“Having completed a full program with them this year we know each other extremely well and definitely talk the same language.

"Ben (Barker) is always strong at Bathurst and I strongly believe he should be able to run with the factory drivers at the event. We're getting great support from Porsche, so hopefully, we can be consistent and do our jobs to bring home a strong result.

"It's hugely exciting for the team to make the step up from running for a class win to be competing with factory teams and all the brands that want to win at Bathurst. It's one of the most exciting things we've done as a team and we're all really looking forward to it.”

The Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour is one of the first major events for 2020 and takes place at Mount Panorama on 30 January - 2 February, 2020.