MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi enters 2025 Bathurst 12 Hour

The WRT BMW squad has announced that MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi will add the Bathurst 12 Hour to his 2025 car racing programme.

Rossi confirmed earlier this month that he would be focusing his factory BMW programme on the LMGT3 class of the World Endurance Championship.

Last year he did a dual campaign in the WEC and the GT World Challenge Europe with WRT, but felt the amount of events he was doing was too much given his family commitments and his desire to have more MotoGP presence this season.

Read more: Inside Valentino Rossi's chase for his long-awaited tenth world title

Rossi said last year that he was intending to race in the Bathurst 12 Hour endurance event - part of the Intercontinental GT Challenge - but nothing had been confirmed.

WRT has now confirmed Rossi’s return to the event in a BMW M4 GT3 EVO, in which he’ll be partnered with Raffaele Marciello and Charles Weertz.

Rossi previously competed at the event with WRT in 2023 and 2024, taking a best of fifth outright last year in a BMW he shared with Marciello and Maxime Martin.

In an exclusive interview with Crash.net, WRT team boss Vincent Vosse said discussions were ongoing with Rossi about doing some GT events outside of the eight-round WEC calendar.

“There are some plans, there are some ideas, but they are not confirmed,” he said.

“But, of course, there are some special races that he enjoys. Those kinds of weekends he loves to do it.”

Rossi made his WEC debut last year and managed two podiums in the #46 car he shared with Martin and Ahmad Al Harthy.

He will be reunited with Al Harthy in 2025, while double Nurburgring 24 Hours winner Kelvin van der Linde replaces Martin in the line-up.

On Rossi electing to focus on WEC over the GT World Challenge Europe, Vosse told Crash: “Everything is coming from age, personal situation, professional situation. VR46, the company, the MotoGP team is growing.

“It probably needs a bit of special attention this year because they will have one new rider to the team [Franco Morbidelli] and they are entering a new era, I would say, as a team.

“Vale himself is also entering a new era because he had his second child a few days ago.

“Probably he also feels that last year he did a bit too much in terms of racing weekends.

“So, he wanted to reduce the number of weekends and we had to decide what would be the best for him.

“And discussing with him, we decided WEC would be a very good platform for him.”