2013 LIQUI- MOLY Bathurst 12 Hour champions Erebus Motorsport will return to the race next February, in partnership with Scott Taylor Motorsport and The Bend Motorsport Park.
And they’re bringing their Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 champions David Reynolds and Luke Youlden with them.
The Erebus pair will join Yasser Shahin in a Scott Taylor Motorsport-prepared Mercedes-Benz AMG GT3 next February, with Erebus to run the car throughout the event.
South Australia’s remarkable new Motorsport facility, The Bend Motorsport Park, will support the entry.
The team will tackle the Pro/Am class however should also factor in the outright results given the overall strength of the combination.
Shahin proved consistently the fastest ‘Am’ driver in testing for the event undertaken at Challenge Bathurst recently.
“The team’s preparation for the test was second to none and I am incredibly excited to run in such a professional environment” he said.
The Shahin family recently made a major contribution to Motorsport with the construction of the world class Bend Motorsport Park and is looking forward to its participation at the iconic 12-Hour.
Erebus Motorsport CEO Barry Ryan said the team was pleased to return to an event so significant in the early years of the Erebus story.
“The event holds a special place the hearts of our team, it was the stage of our first big victory and somewhere we never finished outside the top five,” Ryan said.
“We always go there with high expectations; we want to push for the PRO/AM victory but with the speed Yasser shows as an amateur driver, also give the outright victory a go.”
Reynolds and Youlden will join Shahin in the Mercedes-AMG entry as they look to join an elite group of people to have won the Bathurst 1000-12 Hour double.
“It’s great to be back at Bathurst with Luke and the team and even though it’s a different race and different car, we share great memories,” Reynolds said.
“Luke drives those cars very well and last year was one of the fastest in the Shootout. I’ve seen Yasser drive and he drives very well to so I’m looking forward to it.”
Youlden teamed up with Shahin for this year’s 12-Hour, as well as competing in selected rounds of the Australian GT Championship.
“I’m wrapped it’s worked out this way, having a previous relationship with Yasser, David and the team,” Youlden said.
“It gives me a huge amount of confidence and really good motivation to try win; we have all the ingredients, so I don’t think we could go into a 12-Hour more prepared.”
The return of Erebus Motorsport to the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour represents something of a homecoming for the Melbourne-based team.
Founded in GT racing, the team was a regular force in the 12-hour prior to embarking on their ambitious Supercars program.
After finishing second in 2012, the team won the 2013 edition with German legend Bernd Schneider joined by Thomas Jaeger and Alex Roloff in a Mercedes-AMG SLS GT3. The team also emotionally won the inaugural Allan Simonsen pole award in 2014.
After a challenging start to their Supercars campaign, Erebus have become regular winners in the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship, including Reynolds and Youlden winning the 2017 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.
The duo are also no strangers to Australia’s International Enduro or high-performance GT machinery either.
Reynolds raced a Mercedes-AMG with Mark Griffith’s team last year, while Youlden and Shahin joined forces with Tomas Enge in a Lamborghini Gallardo GT3 – Youlden qualifying the car in the Pirelli Top-10 Shootout.
The team will test in January ahead of the 31 January to 3 February Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour event next year.
