Mount Panorama. Thirteen laps, a fixed setup, and 24 Cup cars pointed up the most intimidating hill in motorsport. I qualified P2, spent lap one driving like a man carrying a full cup of coffee — and still came home P2. Zero incidents. Zero drama. One of the most enjoyable races I have driven all season.
Qualifying: front row, 0.444 off pole
A 2:04.344 put me P2 on the grid, four tenths behind Regis Tay2’s 2:03.900. Fixed setup, so nobody hides behind a magic damper file here — it is purely who dares to keep the throttle open across the top of the Mountain. Front row at Bathurst in a 24-car split at 1897 strength of field: a good place to start, and a very expensive place to make a mistake.
Lap one: cold tyres and a very close wall
The opening lap was not my finest work, and I am fine with admitting that. Cold tyres at Mount Panorama are a genuinely hostile combination, and at Forrest’s Elbow — the last corner before Conrod, the one you absolutely cannot get wrong — the rear stepped out and the concrete got a lot more interested in me than I was in it. I caught it. Barely. What followed was the most cautious opening lap of my career: no heroics, no kerbs, just get the thing to the end of the lap in one piece. Geraldo Nova took P2 off me while I was busy negotiating with physics, and honestly, he had earned it.
The long game — and a lesson in how to lose a position
From there the race became an exercise in patience. I settled in, the tyres came to me, and by lap 6 I was running a 2:04.086 — quicker in the race than I had managed in qualifying, which tells you the cautious start cost nothing but position. I kept the gap to Geraldo alive and waited.
Then he ran wide at Murray’s Corner. I was there, and P2 was mine again. But the part worth writing down is what he did next: he let me through cleanly, and on the rejoin he actually reversed back off the racing line to make sure he was nowhere near me as I came past. No blocking, no wounded pride, no dive-bomb three corners later. He finished P3 and he deserved it. That is exactly the standard of racecraft that makes this hobby worth the money. Chapeau, Geraldo.
The rig report: Bathurst is a full-motion track
There are tracks where a motion platform is a nice extra. Bathurst is not one of them — Bathurst is the reason the thing exists. The D-BOX full-motion platform with the Cubic belt-tension system turns the climb up Mountain Straight into something you feel in your chest, and the descent through the Esses and down the Dipper into something your inner ear files a formal complaint about. Add the triple 4K OLED wall and the compression over the crest genuinely lands. Uphill, over the top, downhill, Conrod, Elbow, repeat. Pure immersion. This is the reason I build simulators instead of just playing games.
Where it leaves me
P2, 4.578 seconds behind the winner, 4.4 seconds clear of P3, thirteen laps, and not a single incident point. iRating 2051 to 2132 (+81), Safety Rating up to A 3.56, and 112 championship points in the bag. Consistency was the whole story: my average lap was within a second of my personal best, and that is what a fixed-setup podium at Mount Panorama is actually made of — not one hero lap, but thirteen boring good ones. I’ll take it. More races, more seat time, and the next one cannot come soon enough.
| Series | iRacing Porsche Cup – Fixed by CONSPIT – 2026 Season 3 |
| Track | Mount Panorama Circuit (Bathurst) |
| Car | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) – fixed setup |
| Start / Finish | P2 → P2 (24 cars) |
| Incidents | 0x |
| Out | Running (lap 13 of 13) |
| Gap to winner | +4.578 s |
| iRating | 2051 → 2132 (+81) |
| Safety Rating | A 2.83 → A 3.56 (+0.73) |
| Strength of Field | 1897 |
| Championship points | 112 |
| Qualifying | 2:04.344 (P2, +0.444) |
| My best lap | 2:04.086 (lap 6) |
| Fastest lap | 2:03.535 (Geraldo Nova) |
| Conditions | 19.4°C, overcast, light wind – no cautions, no lead changes |
Full Result
The complete classification (my row in bold):
| Pos | Driver | Car | Inc | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Regis Tay2 | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 0x | Finished |
| 2 | Philipp Geppl | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 0x | Finished |
| 3 | Geraldo Nova | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 4x | Finished |
| 4 | Omri Levy | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 1x | Finished |
| 5 | Joseph Stevens | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 0x | Finished |
| 6 | Christian Fahnenbruck | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 2x | Finished |
| 7 | David Gerard | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 1x | Finished |
| 8 | Pablo Pardines | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 13x | Finished |
| 9 | Juan Barros | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 4x | Finished |
| 10 | Corey Green3 | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 11x | Finished |
| 11 | Antonio Martino | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 6x | Finished |
| 12 | Zsiros Dávid | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 9x | Finished |
| 13 | Craig Essery | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 1x | Finished |
| 14 | Daniel Zwanink2 | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 4x | Finished |
| 15 | Justin Horvath2 | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 13x | Finished |
| 16 | Jarno Ahtiainen | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 2x | Finished |
| 17 | Jamie McEvoy | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 6x | Finished |
| 18 | Guy Robertson | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 8x | Finished |
| 19 | Darth Urso | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 4x | Finished |
| 20 | Thomas Rosevear | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 2x | Disconnected |
| 21 | Cevyn Crawford | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 5x | Disconnected |
| 22 | Ben Liam Michael | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 6x | Disconnected |
| 23 | David Ford6 | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 2x | Disconnected |
| 24 | Daniel Faife | Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) | 2x | Disconnected |
Livery by Jeremy Kerr (Trading Paints).
Catch the full race & behind-the-wheel shots
Full lap on YouTube, in-helmet snapshots on Instagram.