It was supposed to be much tougher the second time round, but Audi have won their second consecutive Bathurst 12 Hour title.
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And they did it in convincing fashion.
Darryl O’Young, Christopher Mies and Christer Jons had a nervous moment midway through the race when Mies backed the car into the sand trap at Murrays Corner but they avoided going down a lap and soon worked their way back to the front.
They couldn’t repeat their 2011 effort of a one-two finish after the sister car of Craig Lowndes, Warren Luff and Mark Eddy crashed out at the hands of Eddy.
Instead it was the Erebus Mercedes SLS AMG of Peter Hackett, Bret Curtis, Tim Slade and Jeroen Bleekemolen who came home one minute and 13 seconds behind the winner.
Third was taken out by the Clearwater Racing Ferrari 458 of Mok Weng Sun, Craig Baird and Matt Griffin, who were two laps behind the lead pair.
While O’Young and Mies made it two wins in as many years, for Joens it was his first start and, like his team-mates, he won on debut.
“I can’t really believe it right now. The race was great,” the German said.
“That was in the wet with slicks so it was really hard to drive, very difficult.
“I was getting off the pace a little but then when it dried out I got on again.”
There was no shortage of action in the race, starting early when Allan Simonsen began reeling off regular fastest laps and opening a lead on the rest of the field.
But the car was plagued by problems, starting with a faulty fuel gauge which led to the car running out of fuel, and a faulty sensor which triggered a fire extinguisher. They were eventually forced to retire and they were joined by five other Class A cars.
The second Team Phoenix Audi looked set for a podium as well after leading for large parts of the first half of the race but the tough conditions proved too much for Mark Eddy to handle.
He ran off the road three times, the third a heavy shunt coming into The Esses which ended their campaign.
But there was no taking away from the number one Audi. The only mistake of the day came from Mies when he backed it into the sand at Murrays Corner but even that didn’t deter the team.
“I made a mistake where I spun on the last corner. We think that the brake disc, because of the water, were too cold and they were locking,” Mies said.
In the production class, there was an upset victory for the HSV Astra VXR of Scott Pye, Chris Pither and Elliot Barbour which beat some quality opposition to finish on top.
They also finished seventh outright.