Kangaroos on the track and massive crashes at Bathurst 12 Hour qualifying!

The racing season in the United States kicks off with the 24 Hours of Daytona, which took place last weekend - in Australia, they start the year with the Bathurst 12 Hour at Mount Panorama. Qualifying was spectacular!

Every star from the world of GT racing tends to be present for the legendary race. Bathurst is famously a very unforgiving circuit with its big height differences and very close walls, but modern GT3 cars still reach very high speeds in the technical section at the top of the mountain when they go flat-out.

The cars also had to be wary of wildlife during qualifying, it turns out, with kangaroos braving the track and causing a red flag! As seen in the video underneath, both kangaroos were unharmed.

G'day Skip #B12hr pic.twitter.com/pBoR53SqdM

— Bathurst 12 Hour (@Bathurst12hour) January 31, 2020

One of the trickiest things of any endurance race is to keep concentrated for the entire duration, especially when fatigue kicks in later in the race. In qualifying, drivers obviously drive on the limit more, and it resulted in some massive crashes. 

This is terrifying. #B12hr pic.twitter.com/9NFSELa7t3

— Bathurst 12 Hour (@Bathurst12hour) February 1, 2020

Thankfully Everingham is OK after that one. #B12hr #VASC pic.twitter.com/qAZIy3fHXa

— Bathurst 12 Hour (@Bathurst12hour) February 1, 2020

Have you ever seen anything like this!#B12hr pic.twitter.com/55Gt0MPItZ

— Bathurst 12 Hour (@Bathurst12hour) February 1, 2020

Matt Campbell eventually grabbed pole position in his Porsche GT3R, the German team's first-ever pole at Mount Panorama after their maiden win last year. The race starts at 6:45PM UK time, or 5:45AM local time.