The Bathurst lap record is set to be shattered at Mount Panorama next month on February 7-9.

Sports car teams from around the world are on their way to Australia for the Bathurst 12 Hour, where dozens of exotic sports cars will take to the track for a race around the clock.

Experts have predicted lap times from some of the faster machines will be up to four seconds faster than the current V8 Supercar lap record.

A Ferrari 458 prepared by Maranello Motorsport has been the fastest machine at Bathurst in recent years, after the late Danish ace Allan Simonsen recorded a 2:04.95 lap with the car.

Maranello Motorsport team owner Mark Coffey says updated cars and a newly laid bitumen surface at the 6.2km Mount Panorama track will lead to record times.

”I think a GT car could do a 2:02 [2 minutes, 2 seconds] around there,” he says.

”There’s no reason why a new car couldn’t do a 2:02.”

Race commentator Richard Craill agrees that the current lap record could be smashed.

”We’ve been seeing GT3 cars do high 2:04 laps at Bathurst already, I think they will be somewhere around 2:03 in qualifying,” he says.

”It depends on the sort of conditions they get.”

The fastest team in qualifying will take home a trophy named after former Australian GT champion Allan Simonsen, who held the lap record at Bathurst before he was killed in a crash at the Le Mans 24 Hour in 2013.

Simonsen’s seat in the Maranello 458 has been filled by V8 Supercars fan favourite Craig Lowndes, who holds the current V8 Supercars lap record of 2:06.80.

Event organisers have confirmed 50 cars for the race, including a rare McLaren 12C GT3 car set to be driven by defending Australian GT champion Klark Quinn.

German ace Bernd Schneider, one of the most successful touring car and GT drivers in the world, will attempt to follow-up victory in the 2013 Bathurst 12 Hour with further success, and V8 Supercar ace Rick Kelly will lead the charge in the Australian debut of Nissan’s GT-R GT3 race car.

Former Bathurst 1000 winner Greg Murphy will take the wheel of a Chevrolet Corvette, and multiple European GT champion Michael Bartels will lead a pair of V8-powered BMW Z4 coupes.

Drive editor Toby Hagon will tackle the event in a race-prepared Fiat Abarth 695 Assetto Corse.

The official lap record at Bathurst is a 2:04.61 set by Formula Three driver Chris Gilmour, while Jenson Button set a 1:48 lap during and demonstration run with a McLaren Formula One machine.