| Event Information | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Round 8 of 8 in the2020 Supercars Championship | ||||||||||||||
 Layout of the Mount Panorama Circuit | ||||||||||||||
| Date | 15–18 October 2020 | |||||||||||||
| Location | Bathurst, New South Wales | |||||||||||||
| Venue | Mount Panorama Circuit | |||||||||||||
| Weather | Thursday: Fine, 24°C | |||||||||||||
| Results | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
The2020 Bathurst 1000 (formally known as the2020 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000) was amotor racing event forSupercars that was held on the weekend of 15–18 October 2020. It was held at theMount Panorama Circuit inBathurst, New South Wales, Australia, and featured a single 1000 kilometre race. The event was the final race of the2020 Supercars Championship and the final timeSupercheap Auto was the naming rights sponsor, having been so since2005, as United States–basedGenuine Parts Company has acquired naming rights for both the Supercars Championship and the Bathurst 1000 starting in 2021. This was the first Bathurst 1000 in history to run with a limited crowd capacity, due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.
After a qualifying session held on the Friday, the top 10 drivers from that session competed in the shootout whereCam Waters fromTickford Racing claim thepole position with a time of 2:03.5592. In the race, driver pairing,Shane Van Gisbergen andGarth Tander fromTriple Eight Race Engineering who started in fourth place won the race with Van Gisbergen winning his first Bathurst 1000 and Tander his fourth. Cam Waters andWill Davison from Tickford Racing finished in second, withWalkinshaw Andretti United'sChaz Mostert andWarren Luff completing the podium in third.
Following this,Scott McLaughlin who finished fifth in the race would win his third Supercars drivers' championship finishing 451 points ahead of Waters with Van Gisbergen finishing in third. In the teams' championship,DJR Team Penske claimed the title, finishing 262 points ahead of Triple Eight, with Tickford Racing rounding out the top three.
The event was the 63rd running of theBathurst 1000, which was first held at thePhillip Island Grand Prix Circuit in 1960 as a 500-mile race for Australian-made standard production sedans, and marks the 60th time that the race was held at Mount Panorama. It was the 24th running of theAustralian 1000 race, which was first held after the organisational split between the Australian Racing Drivers Club andV8 Supercars Australia that saw two "Bathurst 1000" races contested in both 1997 and 1998.
This was the first time since2000 that the race was also the final round of the championship.[1]
The 2019 winners of the race wereScott McLaughlin andAlexandre Prémat, though Premat, aClark County, Nevada (United States) resident who is the lead instructor at driving school for premium sportscars there, was unable to compete in the race due to border restrictions imposed as a result of theCOVID-19 pandemic in Australia.[2][3]
Twenty-five cars were entered in the event – 17Holden Commodores and eightFord Mustangs, the smallest entry list in the events' history and the firstFord andHolden-only race since2012. In addition to the 24 regular entries, there was a single 'Wildcard' entry from theGarry Rogers Motorsport team for débutantsTyler Everingham andJayden Ojeda from theSuper2 Series.[4] GRM had originally planned forNathan Herne from theAustralian TA2 Racing Series to race in place of Ojeda, however Herne's entry was blocked asMotorsport Australia denied him the required licence.[5][6] Seven drivers made their debuts in the race – Everingham and Ojeda, championship driverZane Goddard,Australian andWorld TCR driverDylan O'Keeffe, former Super2 driverKurt Kostecki, and current Super2 driversJordan Boys andBroc Feeney. With 45Australians and 5New Zealanders in the line-up, it marked the first grid made up of solelyAntipodean drivers since1964.
Entries with a grey background are wildcard entries which do not compete in the full championship season.
| Session | Day | Time | Fastest lap | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Cond. | Ref. | |||
| Practice 1 | Thursday | 0930–1030 | 6 |  Cam Waters | Tickford Racing | Ford Mustang GT | 2:05.0233 | Fine | [9] |
| Practice 2 | 1245–1345 | 55 | James Moffat | Tickford Racing | Ford Mustang GT | 2:06.0584 | Fine | [10] | |
| Practice 3 | 1600–1700 | 6 | Cam Waters | Tickford Racing | Ford Mustang GT | 2:04.1696 | Fine | [11] | |
| Practice 4 | Friday | 0945–1055 | 6 | Will Davison | Tickford Racing | Ford Mustang GT | 2:05.0667 | Heavy cloud | [12] |
| Practice 5 | 1210–1310 | 17 |  Scott McLaughlin | DJR Team Penske | Ford Mustang GT | 2:04.3716 | Patchy cloud | [13] | |
| Practice 6 | Saturday | 0910-1010 | 25 | Warren Luff | Walkinshaw Andretti United | Holden Commodore ZB | 2:05.4597 | Fine | [14] |
| Practice 7 | 1135–1235 | 6 | Cam Waters | Tickford Racing | Ford Mustang GT | 2:04.3493 | Fine | [15] | |
| Warm-Up | Sunday | 0840-0900 | 7 | Andre Heimgartner | Kelly Racing | Ford Mustang GT | 2:05.3195 | Fine | [16] |
| Pos. | No. | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap | Grid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6 | Cam Waters | Tickford Racing | Ford Mustang GT | 2:03.5592 | 1 | |
| 2 | 17 | Scott McLaughlin | DJR Team Penske | Ford Mustang GT | 2:04.0020 | +0.4429 | 2 |
| 3 | 25 | Chaz Mostert | Walkinshaw Andretti United | Holden Commodore ZB | 2:04.0100 | +0.4508 | 3 |
| 4 | 97 | Shane van Gisbergen | Triple Eight Race Engineering | Holden Commodore ZB | 2:04.4511 | +0.8919 | 4 |
| 5 | 5 | Lee Holdsworth | Tickford Racing | Ford Mustang GT | 2:04.6765 | +1.1173 | 5 |
| 6 | 99 | Anton de Pasquale | Erebus Motorsport | Holden Commodore ZB | 2:04.7768 | +1.2096 | 6 |
| 7 | 12 | Fabian Coulthard | DJR Team Penske | Ford Mustang GT | 2:04.8533 | +1.2942 | 7 |
| 8 | 44 | James Courtney | Tickford Racing | Ford Mustang GT | 2:05.3549 | +1.7957 | 8 |
| 9 | 888 | Jamie Whincup | Triple Eight Race Engineering | Holden Commodore ZB | 2:06.3940 | +2.8349 | 9 |
| DSQ[c] | 8 | Nick Percat | Brad Jones Racing | Holden Commodore ZB | 0:00.0000 | n/a | 10 |
| Source:[17] | |||||||
The event telecast was produced by Supercars Media and carried domestically byFox Sports Australia (via Fox Sports 506 andKayo Sports), apaid service which covered all sessions including support categories, andNetwork 10 (viafree-to-air channels 10 and 10HD), which covered select sessions from midday Friday onwards.[18][19]
| Fox Sports | Network 10 |
|---|---|
| Host: Jessica Yates Booth:Neil Crompton,Mark Skaife Pit-lane: Riana Crehan,Andrew Jones,Mark Larkham | Presenters:Grant Denyer Pundit:Rick Kelly Roving: Sam Charlwood,Kate Peck |
| Supercars Championship | ||
|---|---|---|
| Previous race: 2020 The Bend SuperSprint | 2020 Supercars Championship | Next race: 2021 Mount Panorama 500 |
| Previous year: 2019 Bathurst 1000 | Bathurst 1000 | Next year: 2021 Bathurst 1000 |
