Valentino Rossi misses top 10 in Bathurst 12 Hour qualifying
It was a 12th-place qualifying for Valentino Rossi’s #46 BMW M4 GT3.
Qualifying for the 2025 Bathurst 12 Hour has been completed, with Valentino Rossi qualifying 12th for his third attempt at the race.
Rossi, who is now into his third season as a factory BMW driver after making his maiden full-time GT3 campaign with Audi in 2022, was eighth on the grid for last year’s race, in which he acquitted himself well and was able to run among the front running drivers in what is one of the premier events in the sportscar racing calendar.
The Italian is paired with Charles Weerts – who was driving the #32 BMW at last year’s Bathurst race when it made contact with a lapped car – and Raffaele Marciello, whose main duties this year are in the World Endurance Championship with BMW’s M V8 Hybrid LMDh car, this year.
This represents a change to last year for Rossi, who was alongside Marciello and Maxime Martin in 2024’s edition of the Bathurst 12 Hour.
The three were in contention to make the top-10 pole position shootout, but an overheating issue saw them miss a final time attack run, leaving them in 12th.
Further up the grid, it was the Mercedes of Maximilian Goetz, Lucas Auer, and Jayden Ojeda who set pole position in the final 10-car shootout.
Broc Feeney, Ricardo Feller, and Liam Talbot were second in their Audi R8, entered in the Pro-Am class; while Maro Engel, Maxime Martin, and Mikael Grenier’s Mercedes, and the WRT BMW teammates of Rossi, Marciello, and Weerts – Sheldon van der Linde, Kelvin van der Linde, and Augusto Farfus – were fourth.
The 2025 Bathurst 12 Hour gets underway at 05:45 local time (AEDT) on 2 February; or 18:45 UTC on 1 February.
Alex joined the Crash.net team in August of 2024 having covered consumer and racing motorcycle news at Visordown for two years.
