Bathurst Hour 3: Grove suffers scary Skyline crash
Stephen Grove gingerly walked away after a terrifying crash where he rode the wall at Skyline during the third hour of the Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour.
Grove was sent towards the concrete at the summit of Mount Panorama after contact with Kenny Habul on approach to the Esses.
The lapped Grove Racing Bronze class leading Mercedes was off line to allow Habul through, but the pair converged as they crossed the crest.
The contact between the Mercedes saw Grove spear towards the inside barrier and even climbed the concrete in terrifying fashion before finally coming to rest.
Not only did the Mercedes suffer significant front end damage, but Grove was extremely shaken and took some time to get his composure after getting out of the car.
There is little separating the leaders at the front of the field with Alessio Picariello leading the two Team WRT BMWs by less than a second.
The teammates are headed by Charles Beers in the #46 while Robichon leads Bronze, Jaylyn Robotham Silver and Daniel Bilski GT4.
After the frantic period, things settled down at the commencement of the third hour when racing resumed.
Guven quickly built a lead of beyond 5s over Rossi, who held onto second ahead of teammate van der Linde despite a moment at Murrays.
Behind the BMWs little split Brown and Martin, while a further 22s back was Ojeda.
Racing at the same stretch of tarmac, but a lap down was Feeney, who was furiously trying to regain the lost ground.
Silver leader Villagomez restarted second before the Aston Martin drifted deeper into the top 10 but was well ahead of nearest class rival Koundouris.
Grove was two spots ahead of James in the race for Bronze while Griffith had a strong advantage in GT4.
For the second time Habul had a close call at Griffins, this time with Schutte.
The lapped Ferrari was on the outside as the Mercedes clipped the inside kerb which fired him across the track and front to rear contact was made, but luckily they emerged unscathed.
However, the same could not be said sadly after Habul’s next clash.
The SunEnergy1 Mercedes approached the Grove Mercedes as they charged towards the Esses.
But just as the road started to fall, Habul struck Grove as he tried to lap the latter.
The contact sent Grove spearing head on to the outside wall in scary fashion as the Mercedes climbed the concrete before coming to a halt on the approach to The Dipper.
Prior to the clash, Guven had opened up an 11s lead across the 20 green flag minutes.
The stoppage was well timed for the #911 having only stopped once over the first 130 minutes, as all the leaders boxed.
When Guven handed over to Picariello that led over Team WRT teammates Weerts and Kelvin van der Linde, while Martin and Serra rounded out the top five.
Feeney returned to the lead lap in 11th poison overall, a minute behind Silver leader Robotham and Bronze leader Robichon, while Pro Am leader Sam Shahin was 12th.
Despite the Safety Car being out, there were some messy close calls as GT4 leader Levitt completed the wave by and even made contact with Ojeda at Forrests Elbow.
The officials made their stance clear with the #24 McLaren receiving a 5m stop go penalty in addition to a driver through.
At the resumption Picariello shot out of the gates and immediately built a 2s lead over the BMWs.
However, by the end of the hour that was wiped out, setting up an exciting battle for the lead.
Sitting sixth, Ojeda had a scary moment, running wide at Skyline and kissing the dirt on exit, but carried on after a wobble.
A couple of laps later he lost the position to Feeney, who was hellbent on the comeback trail.
Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour leaderboard
Image: Fox Sports
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