It started out as a joke, but Mark Webber's plans to contest the Bathurst 12-hour endurance race with Hollywood movie star Eric Bana are starting to get serious.
Webber sparked plenty of interest last week when he responded to a fan's tweet, asking whether he was going to drive forPorsche with fellow Australian Bana at next year's event at Mt Panorama.
The newly retired Formula One driver replied: "No 2015".
Bana, in Sydney to promote his new film Closed Circuit, said nothing was set in stone but was hopeful of making it a reality.
"It started out as a bit of a joke and then it's kind of taken off, so obviously I'd be thrilled to," said Bana. "I was testing a car for this year's 12-hour - which is coming up in February - and tweeted a photo of the car that we might be driving. Mark follows me on Twitter and immediately tweets something like 'we'll have to get you out of that car and into a different car and we'll do the 12-hour together'.
"If he wanted to do it in 2015 and we could put it together, yeah it'd be amazing.
"I'm a huge Webber fan and that event is structured so that you can't have three professional drivers on a team. It actually has to be a mix of professional, non-professional, serious amateurs and stuff like that so it'd be amazing. It'd be a lot of fun."
Bana, an avid car enthusiast, has competed in the Bathurst 12-hour twice before - in 2009 and 2010 - and hopes to return to Mt Panorama in February.
