From the DSC facebook page:
""The 2016 Bathurst 12 hour has been run and won, and the Daytona sportscars team has put in another great effort. The car was beautifully prepared by Charlie Carauana, James Bendell, John Hebbelthwaite, and Richard Bendell, with a fully rebuilt car and a all new, more powerful engine.
Having had some mechanical failures in previous years, the Daytona had a full rebuild with new components throughout. From the time we turned up at the track, the car just ran flawlessly, and was fast straight out of the box.
New Daytona sportscars endurance driver, Dean Lillie, took the car out first, and was instantly on the pace, setting a lap time in the 11’s straight away. The invitational class of the 12 hour has a minimum lap time of a 2:10.0, so there was little time left to find already, but we needed to make it easy to drive at that pace.
What was surprising the entire pit lane was the top speed of the Daytona. In the first session, the car topped out at 299.6 km/h. the second session saw 300.9km/h. But in the third session, Daytona sportscar regular, Ben Schoots showed his skills, holding the Daytona flat through the chase and topped the car out at 308.6km/h, by far a new top speed record in the Daytona. There was not a car in the race that could stay with the Daytona either up or down the hill, Charlie’s new engine was a beauty!
Come time for qualifying, the team had not missed a beat, and it was by far the best preparation for a 12 hour that we have ever had. Our Driving team put in a time as close to the class minimum as we dared, taking a clear Pole position for the class, and ending up in Position 25 outright in the field with a 1:10.56.
The crew of Peter Newton, Alex De Solar, Karl Parsons, Glenn Sambell, Peter Symons, Mark Newton, Mark Defanis, and Bill Schoots worked hard to get the car ready for the race, and we were all very confident.
With a 5:45am start, the race got underway in the pitch dark, and we got underway. Straight away, we found ourselves in the wrong place, with a set of headlights facing us on the exit of turn 2. After getting around the incident and got started chasing the pack down that had gotten away whilst we avoided the crash.
With a few shift issues in the early laps when the gearbox was cold, it took a while to get the car up to pace. We performed an early stop during a safety car, made a few tweaks to the car, getting car to run just as smoothly as it had all weekend.
Over the next few hours, the car ran sweetly, closing in on the lead of the race lap after lap. As we closed in on Mid race distance, we had the first instance of a Drive By wire issue whilst Jamie Augustine was driving the car. Over the next few laps, Jamie tried to work out a way to drive around the issue, but eventually got stuck just out of turn 2 when the LS Drive By Wire motor finally lost its mind completely.
We got the Daytona back into the pits and examined the issue in detail. It was decided to replace the DBW motor, but the spare DBW motor was a slightly different model to the one on the engine, and we lost plenty of time trying to change it out.
With the other DBW motor on the engine, the Daytona continued in the race, many laps down on the class leader. Whilst this went on, we disassembled the DBW motor that we had removed from the car, trying to determine the issue. When we found what we believe to be the issue, the DBW motor was repaired, and readied to be put back in the car during the next pit stop.
During the next stop, the original DBW motor was swapped back, we changed drivers, and left the pits to try to chase down the class leaders. But just when we thought we were ready to race to the finish, the car came back in with a lack of
oil pressure. After a few tests, we realised that the internal engine
oil pressure pump had failed, and the race was over for us…
The 2016 Bathurst 12 hour was the best preparation that we have ever come to Bathurst with, but it just wasn’t enough this year. Each year we turn up, we go faster, another 2.5 seconds faster this year. And each year we work every part of the car harder to go faster. It is always difficult to get a fast car to run 12 hours flat out, but one day, it will be Daytona sportscars day…..
Thanks to all of the Daytona Sportscars crew, our fantastic drivers, Mr everything Nels, the guys from Pirelli and our new Team Supporters, Steve and Muzz.""
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Bathurst 12 hour 2016
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