Heartbreaking end for ‘completely cooked’ Ambrose

A fairytale return to racing has come to a premature end at the Bathurst 6 Hour for Marcos Ambrose, whose car cried no more.

The two-time Supercars champion and his team had tried to achieve a lofty goal, entering the only automatic car in the endurance race.

However, just over two hours into the race, Ambrose pulled the bright yellow Ford Mustang into the pit lane where it would finish the race.

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Joined by George Miedecke and Trans Am regular Tim Brook, the trio had been class contenders.

“We’re completely cooked,” Ambrose told Stan Sport’s Chris Stubbs.

“We’re done. Gearbox is gone. We were trying to run this 10-speed auto and everything was going great.

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“We had a lot of speed going across the top of The Mountain. Everything, strategy was good.

“The old man was double stinting, it was all working out and bang, it started slipping, the clutch plates inside the gearbox and it was done.

“It was immediate, straight off turn one. It was slipping in every gear.”

This year’s Bathurst 6 Hour marked the first time since 2015 that Ambrose had competed at Mount Panorama. 

His last outing in Supercars was at the Gold Coast 600 and before that the Bathurst 1000 with Scott Pye and the then-known DJR Team Penske.

It was a brutal end to Ambrose’s return, having led the class at the time of their downfall. 

“We’re running A2 class, we were leading our class and then we were leading outright,” said Ambrose.

“I started looking at these BMWs and they are rockets down the straightaway. It’s got to be 20 lengths down Conrod. It was just incredible.

“We were hustling really hard across the top. We had a lot of speed there, the balance was beautiful. 

“The Mustang was handling great across the top. The gearbox was great, until it wasn’t.”

The opening half of the six-hour race was littered with incidents, the first of those just 12 laps into the race.

The No.16 Mercedes-AMG C63 of Tony Levitt and Mark Griffith slapped the wall at the Metal Grate before coming to a halt at John Hinxman Vista.

Safety car interventions were a consistent thing in the first three hours.

A clash between the Class A1 No.9 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X and the Class B1 No.96 BMW 135i ended with the latter stopped in the Hell Corner gravel trap.

While that was happening, the only Holden GTS in Class X spun on its own out of the Dipper, narrowly avoiding being hit by the trailing pack.

The third safety car intervention came when the No.86 Toyota 86 understeered into the concrete wall at Forest’s Elbow, damaging the steering.

Then the No.66 Subaru WRX STi went into the tyre wall at Griffins Bend, ending their day early.

As the halfway mark approached, the No.77 Volkswagen Scirocco buried itself in the sand trap at McPhillamy Park.

Clutch dramas for the No.28 BMW 335i saw that car stop at Murray’s Corner.

The No.27 BMW M4 of Grant Sherrin and Iain Sherrin led at halfway but were overtaken just after the three-hour mark by another BMW M4, the No.23 driven by Beric Lynton, Tim Leahey, and Will Davison.

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