Hi to all you Supercars Fans around the world!
On the week from November 30th to December 5th, 2021 was the 61st running of The Bathurst 1000. It was the final race for the year and the biggest race of the year. The Bathurst 1000 is not only known in Australia but considered internationally as one of the toughest races in the category.
The new sponsor for the great race was Repco who have claimed the naming rights over previous year’s sponsors, Supercheap Auto.
Usually the race includes international drivers but due to COVID-19 restrictions no overseas contestants were able or willing to come to Australia. Some notable drivers absent included, Greg Murphy and Richard Stanaway who were supposed to team up in a Boost Mobile Commodore and run with Murphy’s old number, car 51.
I’m also assuming it was to the relief of some local drivers that Scott McLaughlin wasn’t able to make it from the U.S., due to commitments in his Indy Cars maiden year.
It was also an emotionally filled last event for Roland Dane, Triple Eight Race Engineering founding member and team principal since 2003. His retirement from the position is opening the door to team driver and 7 time champion, Jamie Whincup. Jamie Whincup has now retired from full time racing after 20 years to take on this new role.
In honour of his achievements, Jamie Whincup was inducted into the Supercars Hall of Fame.
The Bathurst 1000 event is so huge that the preliminary sessions start taking place 5 days before the main event!
The results for the pre-race sessions were a mixed bag of this season’s fastest drivers. The only surprise were the following drivers weren’t in the mix; Season Champion Shane Van Gisbergen, highly accomplished long term driver Jamie Whincup and Anton de Pasquale (who has shown amazing speed and form in the last 4 events).
The pre-session results were as follows:
- Cameron Waters was fastest in Practice 1
- Lee Holdsworth was fastest in Practice 2
- Cameron Waters was fastest in Practice 3
- Chaz Mostert was fastest in Practice 4
- Will Brown was fastest in Armour All Qualifying
- Lee Holdsworth was fastest in Practice 5
- Chaz Mostert was fastest in Practice 6
- Brocq Feeney and Russell Ingall was fastest in the Warm Up
Finally the Sunday came and the 25 cars took their places on the grid just before 12:15pm.
Chaz Mostert and Lee Holdsworth (car 25) started on pole position. Anton de Pasquale and Tony Dalberto (car 11) were in P2 alongside them.
It was the co-drivers behind the wheel of both cars, Lee Holdsworth and Tony Dalberto.
In fact most of the co-drivers started the race except for Tim Slade and Mark Winterbottom.
I thought given that it was Jamie Whincup’s last race, he would have started behind the wheel but it was his co-driver & 7 times Bathurst winner, Craig Lowndes.
As they took off from the start line, Tony Dalberto to my surprise led into turn 1 from his position 2 on the grid. He held the lead until ‘The Chase’ then Lee Holdsworth assumed the lead. He had .8 second lead and quickly had 1.1 second lead. Car 25 was a jet.
In that first lap the usual leap-frog of positions occurred. Garth Tander gained 3 spots and Craig Lowndes lost 2 after starting 5th and 11th on the grid respectively.
As they entered lap 2 the drivers settled down and had their first flying lap. Lee Holdsworth in car 25 was going so fast Garth Tander now in second place, had no chance in catching him.
By lap 3 car 20 driven by Scott Pye and co-driver James Golding came in early because of a mechanical drama. Scott Pye didn’t know what the problem was and the stop took up valuable time. When car 20 came back on track they were 1 lap down.
On lap 16 Craig Lowndes was a little bit sideways but recovered easily. In the next lap he took the opportunity to hand over to Jamie Whincup. The timing was perfect, as Whincup left the pitlane he had clear track in front of him.
It wasn’t until lap 17 that the first safety car was deployed because Thomas Randle in car 44 was buried in the sand at turn 1.
While all the pit-stops were happening car 25 was still the pace setter. The cars behind seemed to still have no chance to catch the pole sitting car.
On lap 29 car 9 driven by Jack Perkins had a power steering failure going across the top of the mountain. Smoke was pouring out the back of the car and cars behind had to slow down to keep out of the hazardous haze. Car 9 headed straight for the pits.
On lap 49 Chaz Mostert was still leading the race but suddenly started slowing on Conrod Straight. Commentator, Mark Skaife thought it was a mechanical drama but after the unscheduled pit stop it was revealed to simply be a flat tyre. It was a cruel blow that dropped him down from 1st to 12th.
It was now Cam Waters (#6), Brodi Kostecki (#99) and Shane Van Gisbergen (#888) in the top 3 positions with a 16+ seconds lead over Anton de Pasquale (#11) in 4th place.
After a few laps Brodi Kostecki went into the pits leaving the top 3 positions to Waters, Gisbergen and Whincup.
Further back in the pack Dean Fiore (co-driver to Tod Hazelwood, #14) returned to the pits with warped rear brakes plus an existing muffler problem that they decided not to fix. So they had issues on the throttle issue and on the brakes.
On lap 57 Cam Waters also headed to the pits. It was now Champion Elect Shane Van Gisbergen at the front with teammate Jamie Whincup right behind him in position 2. Whincup had gained 9 places.
Meanwhile Mostert was making way through the mayhem and was at 6th position fighting for his comeback.
By lap 61 Whincup headed in to the pits to hand over to Craig Lowndes. Mostert had amazingly worked his way through the pack and now in 2nd place to Gisbergen albeit roughly 35 seconds behind.
On lap 64 it was time for Shane Van Gisbergen to head to the pits. Mostert in car 25 was back in the lead!
On lap 105 Holdsworth who had a 39+ second lead headed to the pits. It was then that the 2nd safety car was deployed. It wasn’t due to any great pile up or accident but because an Echidna was on the track! I can only assume that it could sense the ground vibrations from the rumbling V8s and thought it was ants burrowing and there was a big feast to be had. If it were truly ants, all I can say is they would be damned BIG ants! (What was the echidna thinking?)
Once the Australian Native left the track the safety car peeled off and the race went back to green with 52 laps to go.
Holdsworth had handed over #25 to Chaz Mostert just as the race went yellow. So on the return to green it was Gisbergen, Mostert and Whincup in the the top 3 places but the leading gaps had closed up.
Gisbergen (#888) was racing for the team and slowed down enough to make Mostert (#25) attempt a pass but that would leave him wide and Whincup could gain a spot. A very clever tactic.
Soon enough Mostert lost his patience and tried his luck. It was bad timing considering the upcoming turns. Whincup managed to slip in while Mostert was wide. Then Mosterts poor positioning allowed Anton de Pasquale to pass him.
Mostert fought back and passed Anton de Pasquale at turn 1 on the next lap.
It was lap 114 of 161 and the competition was so fierce. The Triple Eight drivers in the lead, Gisbergen and Whincup both did their fastest lap of the race with Chaz Mostert hot on their tail.
It was then that car 35 driven by Jayden Ojeda (Zane Goddard) hit the wall and the 3rd safety car for the race was deployed. All drivers headed to the pits.
On exit it was busier than a Woolworths parking lot on Saturday morning. Brodi Kostecki squeezed in ahead of Shane Van Gisbergen. Will Davison tried the same thing but coming in from the left wasn’t seen by Jamie Whincup and they made contact. As a result Davison received a 5 second pit lane penalty that he had to serve in his next and last pit stop.
When the race went back to green the fierce driving returned lead by Reynolds (#26), Mostert(#25) and Gisbergen (#888).
On lap 121 the second Matt Stone Racing car #34, Jake & Kurt Kostecki hit the tyre barrier at Forest Elbow (didnt hit a funny bone) bringing out the 4th safety car of the day. The car looked pretty messed up. Somehow Jake Kostecki managed to reverse the car out of the barrier and make it back to the pits unassisted.
With 22 laps remaining Anton de Pasquale came to a halt midway through ‘The Cutting’. He couldn’t get the gears to engage and the race returned to Yellow for the 5th time.
The lead was now in the hands of Mostert, Gisbergen and Waters. Whincup had dropped to 5th place.
On lap 144 (19 laps remaining) newcomer Brocq Feeney left the track at turn 10 and ended up in the sand pit with a right front wheel bent at an unholy angle. The 6th safety car was sent out. With such little time left ‘The Enforcer and the Kid’ would not be returning to the track. (Russel Ingall’s nickname is The Enforcer).
The race went back to green with 16 laps to go. It was now on to the finish line for young and old with all the gaps closed up due to the safety car.
Between the last 16 laps and 10 laps remaining Mostert had worked up a 2.654 second lead over the defending Bathurst Champion Shane Van Gisbergen.
Mostert was only managing to gain a few 10ths of a second on each lap.
With 7 laps to go Mostert had a 4.599 second lead over SVG. It was then that Mostert got his lucky break. Shane Van Gisbergen started slow. It was the worst possible timing to get a flat tyre on the front right. By the time he reached the pits he had dropped from 2nd place to 18th while the others managed to clock up another 2 laps. They were at lap 156 of 161. SVG must have been devastated to be taken from a sure podium finish to the back of the pack. Credit to him, they changed the tyre and he headed back out to complete the race.
With SVG out of the way Mostert had a 5+ second lead over Cam Waters #6 and Brodi Kostecki #99 a further 3.4+ seconds back. Mostert in his jet of a car was driving flawlessy.
Whincup in 4th place was fighting for a podium finish in his last race as a full-time driver. The pace was so demonic he just couldn’t make any gain on Kostecki. IN fact in those last laps the split remained almost static the whole time.
On the last lap Mostert’s lead enable him to drive at a slower pace ensuring there were no last second mistakes. He comfortbly crossed the finish line to the cheers of the crowd.
This was Mostert’s second Bathurst win since his last in 2014 and 10 years since the team Walkinshaw Andretti United had their last Bathurst Win. Co-driver Lee Holdsworth looked like he was going to puke as he scored his first Bathurst after 18 attempts in The Big Race.
Results for race 31
1st Chaz Mostert and Lee Holdsworth – Walkinshaw Andretti United.
2nd Cameron Waters and James Moffatt – Tickford Racing.
3rd Brodie Kostecki and David Russell – Erebus Motorsport.
4th Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes – Red Bull Ampol Racing.
Congratulations to Jamie Whincup on everything you have achieved during your amazing Supercars career, you should be so proud of yourself, best of luck for the future.
The next event is the Repco Newcastle 500 March 4th to 6th 2022.