A late charge to the line gave Grant and Iain Sherrin outright victory in Sunday’s Bathurst 6 Hour.
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Grant Sherrin steered the BMW M4 from fourth to first during the final green flag period of the race, helping the duo put aside last year’s costly mechanical dramas.
Brett Strom and Daren Jorgensen won a thrilling fight for second place in their BMW M Coupe ahead of Steven Johnson, Rob Woods and Marcel Zalloua’s Mercedes A45 AMG.
“It was really emotional. We’ve been coming here for quite a long time now. We started off in E class and we had a victory there a long time ago. We’ve never cracked that outright,” Iain Sherrin said.
“It’s been a long time coming and a lot of hard work. First it was the [BMW] 135 and now the M4 and we’ve finally got there.”
Pole sitters Beric Lynton and Tim Leahey, along with the Sherrin entry, were racing in a world of their own during the opening laps.
They blew out to a 20 second lead before Colin Osborne struck the wall at Forrest’s Elbow. The crash did significant damage to the tyre wall and a red flag was required to fix it.
Following the 20 minute pause Steve Owen took up control of the race before bad luck visited his team owner Dylan Thomas in the sister car.
Thomas’ Lancer came to a stop on the run towards the Cutting and brought out the safety car.
Owen’s co-driver Daniel Stutterd led the race at the halfway mark before he was passed by both Craig Baird and Iain Sherrin.
Pole sitter Leahey had a big scare when his car stopped approaching turn three but a reboot got his BMW going again.
Sherrin held the lead over Baird before the latter had to take a brief trip into the garage, eventually putting the team a lap down.
Heading into the final hour Iain Sherrin led over Lynton.
The Sherrin entry got shuffled back during the next round of pit stops and Lynton shot to the lead.
However, the Mount wasn’t finished playing its nasty tricks on the front runners and Lynton was its next victim.
With just 20 minutes remaining Lynton’s right rear wheel broke free at Skyline and cruelly ended the team’s race with victory in sight.
That incident brought out the 11th safety car and led to an 11 minute dash to the line, led by Strom.
The safety car had also allowed the Sherrins to make back lost time from a drive through penalty.
Strom’s lead was short lived as a charging Grant Sherrin leapt from fourth to first in just five minutes’ time.
Sherrin continued to pull away in the closing laps to seal the victory.
Strom slipped back to third but caught Johnson on the penultimate lap to take the runner-up spot.
“The last safety car was a blessing. We pulled a rabbit out of the hat there,” Grant Sherrin said.
“The team did a fantastic job today in the pits. They didn’t miss a beat.”
BMW has now taken out all three editions of the Bathurst 6 Hour so far.