However Ferrari Tipo 500 Chassis No. 5 had an equally famous after-life Down Under in the hands of two notable Australian drivers. More......

Racing Gibsons are joint 2012 PI Classic Patrons

Australia’s most famous husband and wife touring car team of Fred and Christine Gibson are joint Patrons of the 2012 Phillip Island Classic Festival of Motorsport from March 9-11.

Bathurst winner, Ford factory driver and later mastermind and owner of the team that won four Australian Touring Car Championships and three Bathurst 1000s, Fred Gibson is one of the giants of Australian motorsport.

Christine Gibson (ne Cole) remains Australia’s most successful female driver after a career that began in 1967 driving a Mini sports sedan and peaked with her competing as a Holden and an Alfa Romeo Dealer Team driver in the 1970s and a Nissan team driver in the early 1980s.

Today retired, but still very much on the pulse of the sport’s latest developments, the Gibsons fit perfectly with the 2012 Phillip Island Classic theme, celebrating the ‘Class of 1972’. More...

Richards to revive Touring Car glory at Phillip Island

Australia’s greatest active touring car driver, Jim Richards, will relive the first of his four National titles when returns to the wheel of one of his 1985 Championship-winning BMW 635 CSi cars at the 2012 Phillip Island Classic Festival of Motorsport from March 9-11.

Richards will race the former John Player Special team car against a near-capacity field of former Group C and Group A touring cars from the 1970s and 1980s in four Touring Car Revival races over the Phillip Island Classic weekend in his first race in a BMW for 24 years.

Participation in the Phillip Island Classic races is essential to qualify drivers for their involvement in major support category events for the Group C and Group A Touring Cars at the 2012 Formula 1™ Australian Grand Prix meeting the following weekend, at which Richards will again drive the 635 CSi.

The BMW that Richards will race is the car he originally campaigned in Group C configuration in the 1984 Australian Touring Car Championship in what was a ‘shakedown’ for Australia’s move to International Group A Touring Car regulations the following year.

The vehicle was then rebuilt to Group A specification and was one of three similar BMWs that Richards drove to dominate the 1985 series, winning both the Australian Touring Car and Australian Endurance Championships that year. More........

Open wheelers power Phillip Island Classic Festival entry

A record grid of up to 38 high-powered open-wheeler racing cars will be a spectacular highlight of the 23rd annual Phillip Island Classic Festival of Motor Sport organised by the Victorian Historic Racing Register from 9-11 March 2012

An expected 35 thundering Formula 5000 V8-engined racers from the 1970s, including leading cars from New Zealand, the USA, Canada and the UK, will be joined by several former Formula 1 cars from the 1980s in highlight events at the meeting, each of which will feature a rolling start.

Another highlight will be the large field of former Group C (1973-1984) and Group A (1985-1992) touring cars assembled for the meeting – with seven-time Bathurst winner Jim Richards and four-times Australian champion John Bowe amongst the drivers on the planned 22-car grid.

The ‘Class of 1972’ will also be a feature of the meeting, marking the 40th anniversary of Peter Brock’s memorable first Hardie-Ferodo 500 win in a Holden Dealer Team Torana XU-1 – the first of his record nine Bathurst victories. A special painting created by noted Australian motorsport artist Mike Harbar showing Brock leading John French’s second-placed XY GT HO Phase III Falcon and Doug Chivas driving the third-placed Chrysler Charger is being created for the meeting and will be auctioned for charity.

The 1972 race was notable as the last Bathurst where competitors were allowed to complete the full distance without a relief driver and it was the only time the big three manufacturers of Australia in the 60's and 70's all had representatives in the top three finishers.

The 2012 Phillip Island Classic Festival of Motorsport is again on track for another big 500-vehicle entry and will continued to be supported by Shannons, CoolDrive and Penrite, Race officials will again be supplied by the Victorian Mini Club.

Other highlights of the meeting will be: -

• Celebrations of 60 years of Lotus engineering • The appearance of several special cars flown in from the Porsche Museum in Germany • Displays by up to 40 different car clubs and their members • An anticipated record number of trade stalls.

The Phillip Island Classic Festival of Motorsport remains one of the largest and most respected motorsport historic motorsport events on the international calendar.

It was recently short-listed in Octane Magazine’s inaugural 2011 International Historic Motoring Awards, coming in just behind the Goodwood Revival in the prestigious ‘Motorsport Event of the Year’ category.

More meeting details can be found by visiting www.vhrr.com For media enquiries and publication quality images: Michael Browning 0418 324 328

For more information visit www.vhrr.com, www.phillipislandcircuit.com.au or call (03) 9744 1807

Porsche 917 2008 more

The Porsche Collection 2007 more *Souvenir pages from the 2007 Race Programme here

Click here for the latest photos from the 2009 event and here for more photos

The Phillip Island Circuit
The Phillip Island circuit is situated in a spectacular coastal location approximately 130km south of Melbourne city.  The drive, once you get on to the South Eastern freeway, takes approximately 1 hour 45 minutes.  The Phillip Island circuit contains an excellent mixture of fast and tight sections over undulating countryside.  Large sections of the track can be viewed from virtually all spectator areas.  Click here to go to the Phillip Island Circuit website.

Information for Visitors to Melbourne
If you will be visiting Melbourne for the Phillip Island International Challenge, link to Visitors to Melbourne page for useful information and links about the City of Melbourne and it's surroundings.