BRODIE Kostecki andTodd Hazelwood won the fastest Repco Bathurst 1000 in history, completing a remarkable 12 months for Erebus Motorsport.
The #1 Chiko Chevrolet dominated the race, leading 157 laps and becoming the first entry to win the race in under six hours.
Broc Feeney andJamie Whincup came up just over a second shy of victory after an intense final stint, in which the Erebus and Triple Eight pilots battled flat-out.
BREAKTHROUGH:Drivers whose maiden win was the Bathurst 1000
Their duel was set up by the sole Safety Car period of the race,triggered by a crash for Matt Payne with 30 laps to go.
After dominating the first half of the race, the #1 Erebus Chevy entered the second half with a 16-second margin over the #88 Triple Eight car, with a similar distance back to the #87 Triple Eight Camaro in third.
They maintained the margins through the next round of pitstops on laps 86-87, with the primary/co-driver battle swinging for the next stint, with Hazelwood going toe-to-toe with Feeney.
Hazelwood held his own, managing the margin throughout his stint to hand the car back to Kostecki on lap 115 with a 10-second gap over the #88 Camaro.
However, the #1 car developed understeer through the next stint. Feeney, smelling blood in the water, made the most of a front roll-bar tweak to start hacking into Kostecki’s lead.
By the final round of pitstops, the gap between the Camaros was down to under four seconds.
However, the complexion changed with Payne’s crash on lap 132.
Friday’s provisional polesitter slid wide entering the Cutting and clattered into the wall, almost immediately triggering a Safety Car and the final round of pitstops.
The big loser of the race’s first Full Course Yellow period wasJack Le Brocq.
Running fourth but past the pit entrance when the FCY was called, he pitted the next time around and was in the middle of his stop when the field was freed to pack up behind the Safety Car, dumping him to eighth.
That left the restart order as Kostecki, Feeney,Will Brown,Cam Waters,Richie Stanaway,Chaz Mostert,Cooper Murray, Le Brocq,James Golding andAnton De Pasquale among the top 10.
Kostecki held the field down until the exit of Murray’s Corner before accelerating on the restart, staying just clear of Feeney.
Once the pair’s tyres were up to pressure, it was on.
With no need to conserve fuel or rubber, they engaged in a flat-out duel to the finish, trading the fastest lap of the race as the lead oscillated between 0.5-1.0s.
The intensity of the battle at the front allowed the leading duo to drop third-placed Brown; with 20 laps to go, the #87 had fallen over three seconds adrift, with Waters and Mostert a similar distance back in fourth and fifth.
At the front, the gap continued to sit at the one second mark.
Kostecki gave himself some breathing room with five laps to go, a monster lap increasing the margin to 1.4s.
A lap later, it was out to 1.5s. One more lap later and it was 1.79s.
One last wrinkle appeared on the final lap;James Courtney andBryce Fullwood were battling over 19th place, and Kostecki arrived to lap them at Skyline.
Fullwood moved aside through the Esses, slotting in between the two leaders for the run down the hill, while Courtney eased off down Conrod.
In the end Kostecki led Feeney across the line by just 1.34 seconds after one of the most intense final stints in the race’s history.
The final race time for 161 laps was 5h58m03.0649s – almost four minutes under the previous race record set in 2018 – for an average speed of 167.598 km/h.
Brown/Pye completed the Camaro rout of the podium, while the battle for the best Mustang was won by Waters in fourth, who sustained intense pressure from Mostert throughout the final stint.
Several runners outside the top five could point to mistakes or misfortune that cost them better finishes.
De Pasquale/D’Alberto had been the best of the Fords in fifth entering the penultimate round of stops, but a long brake change cost them over half a minute under green-flag conditions.
TheirDick Johnson Racing teammates Davison/Allen could have taken up the mantle, but a five-second penalty for Davison’s bump onDale Wood back on lap 62 was compounded by the decision to keep the #17 out during the lap of FCY, which left Davison at the end of the SC train once he stopped.
Triple Eight’s wildcard hopes also foundered through a series of unfortunate events.
From an outside shot at a podium, 15 seconds and three positions were lost during a slow brake change on lap 85, with nine more seconds dumped when a brake lockup sent Lowndes down the escape road at Murray’s Corner.
The final blow came at the start of the Safety Car period, with Murray handed a pitlane drive-through penalty for not slowing down quickly enough in response to the FCY.
Grove Racing had some additional late heartache on top of Payne’s crash, with the #26 Stanaway/Wood Mustang running out of fuel on the final tour and falling from sixth to ninth.
Brown’s third-place finish allowed him to extend his championship lead to 204 points over Feeney, whose second-place finish leaps him past Mostert, who now falls to 225 markers off the lead.
The penultimate round of the Repco Supercars Championship is in a fortnight’s time with the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500.
Pos | No. | Drivers | Team | Car | Time |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | Brodie Kostecki / Todd Hazelwood | Erebus | Chevrolet | 161 laps |
2 | 88 | Broc Feeney / Jamie Whincup | Triple Eight | Chevrolet | +1.3496s |
3 | 87 | Will Brown /Scott Pye | Triple Eight | Chevrolet | +13.6404s |
4 | 6 | Cam Waters /James Moffat | Tickford | Ford | +15.1169s |
5 | 25 | Chaz Mostert /Lee Holdsworth | WAU | Ford | +15.8428s |
6 | 31 | James Golding /David Russell | PremiAir | Chevrolet | +17.5856s |
7 | 11 | Anton De Pasquale /Tony D’Alberto | DJR | Ford | +26.7384s |
8 | 9 | Jack Le Brocq /Jayden Ojeda | Erebus | Chevrolet | +29.7233s |
9 | 26 | Richie Stanaway / Dale Wood | Grove | Ford | +32.2044s |
10 | 4 | Cameron Hill /Cameron Crick | MSR | Chevrolet | +33.6141s |
11 | 55 | Thomas Randle /Tyler Everingham | Tickford | Ford | +34.4170s |
12 | 17 | Will Davison /Kai Allen | DJR | Ford | +34.9590s |
13 | 96 | Macauley Jones /Jordan Boys | BJR | Chevrolet | +40.2488s |
14 | 888 | Craig Lowndes / Cooper Murray | Triple Eight | Chevrolet | +55.9923s |
15 | 2 | Ryan Wood /Fabian Coulthard | WAU | Ford | +74.0957s |
16 | 8 | André Heimgartner /Declan Fraser | BJR | Chevrolet | +107.7824s |
17 | 10 | Nick Percat /Dylan O’Keeffe | MSR | Chevrolet | +110.5959s |
18 | 18 | Mark Winterbottom /Michael Caruso | Team 18 | Chevrolet | +116.6408s |
19 | 23 | Tim Slade /Cameron McLeod | PremiAir | Chevrolet | +118.6041s |
20 | 50 | Jaxon Evans /Dean Fiore | BJR | Chevrolet | +121.5311s |
21 | 7 | James Courtney /Jack Perkins | BRT | Ford | +1 lap |
22 | 14 | Bryce Fullwood /Jaylyn Robotham | BJR | Chevrolet | +1 lap |
23 | 3 | Aaron Love /Aaron Cameron | BRT | Ford | +1 lap |
24 | 20 | David Reynolds /Warren Luff | Team 18 | Chevrolet | +2 laps |
25 | 118 | Matt Chahda /Brad Vaughan | MCM | Chevrolet | +15 laps |
26 | 19 | Matt Payne /Garth Tander | Grove | Ford | DNF |
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