Shane van Gisbergen goes back-to-back at Bathurst 1000 amid teammate’s ’catastrophic’ disaster
Shane van Gisbergen has farewelled Bathurst in perfect fashion with a dominant Bathurst 1000 win but it was the exact opposite for his teammate.
Shane van Gisbergen has conquered The Mountain once again, winning his third Bathurst 1000 in four years with a brilliant performance.
It’s a brilliant way for van Gisbergen to finish up at Bathurst ahead of his much-vaunted move to the US to race in NASCAR from next season.
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With clashes with the NASCAR calendar for 2024, it appears as though this will be SVG’s last Bathurst for some time but it was an impressive performance for the New Zealander.
Van Gisbergen pulled away for the win with about 50 laps left and was never seriously challenged towards the end of the race as he and co-driver Richie Stanaway claimed the win.
It was comfortable in the end as van Gisbergen came across the line just over 20 seconds (20.068 to be exact) ahead of Brodie Kostecki and David Russell’s Camaro, while Anton de Pasquale and Tony D’Alberto’s Mustang was third.
Commentator Neil Crompton described it as an “emphatic victory”, adding: “That’s a big one for Shane as he prepares to leave our shores.”
Van Gisbergen said it was “the perfect way to say goodbye” but also said “I’ll be back”.
But while the spoils go to the victors, there was heartbreak for Triple Eight Racing who appeared headed for a 1-2 finish before Broc Feeney tasted disaster.
Van Gisbergen said he was “really gutted for the Broc and Jamie and the 88 boys” after Feeney’s Camaro suddenly lost speed with about 25 laps to go when he was sitting second and in a great position fuel-wise for a charge at the top step of the podium.
Heartbreak for Broc Feeney as another Triple Eight car with a gear issue in the Great Race!
— Supercars (@supercars) October 8, 2023
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Neil Crompton described it on the Supercars broadcast as a “catastrophic situation” for Feeney.
“A slow Red Bull car. It’s a drama for Feeney at a critical stage of the race,” Crompton said.
“This is a gigantic game changer. What on earth has gone on with Broc Feeney’s car? He was in a commanding position from a fuel strategy standpoint.”
“Absolutely devastating,” commentator Greg Murphy said. “This is just torture.”
The Red Bull team got him to go into the garage and miraculously back out on course but on his first outlap, it got stuck almost immediately in second gear and Feeney said he was “too scared” to force it in case it went back into first.
He pitted at the end of the next lap. While his podium dreams were gone, he went back out in order to get a classification for the overall V8 championship.
Feeney, who is just 20, struggled to keep his emotions in check when interviewed after the race.
“I don’t know what to say, I’m gutted,” Feeney said.
“We were real fast, the track was coming to us, I don’t know what the fuel numbers were like but we were real fast out there.
“This place can be the best but it can also be the worst so I’m just absolutely gutted mate.”
Feeney added that he turns 21 “in a couple of weeks” and said he hopes he can come back for many years to come.
Absolutely gutted for Broc Feeney!
— Redbeardassassin (@redbeardass) October 8, 2023
Valiant effort, just a shame the car fell apart on him.
Van Gisbergen with some steering issues but a 23 second lead...
He could drop a second or 2 each lap and still take this!
LET'S GO!
Feeney did so well but his car let him down. I feel bad for him especially after watching his interview.
— Avishek Sarkar 🇮🇳 (@Avishek26Dec) October 8, 2023
Oh kid, you have plenty of years left in front of you - best of luck in future years to you Feeney. #Bathurst
— DiPolarPilot 🇺🇦 (@DiPolarPilot) October 8, 2023
2023 Bathurst 1000 Top 5
- Shane van Gisbergen / Richie Stanaway, #97 Camaro, Triple Eight Race Engineering
- Brodie Kostecki / David Russell, #99 Camaro, Erebus Motorsport
- Anton de Pasquale / Tony D’Alberto, #11 Mustang, Shell V-Power Racing Team
- Chaz Mostert / Lee Holdsworth, #25 Mustang, Walkinshaw Andretti United
- David Reynolds / Garth Tander, #26 Mustang, Penrite Racing
5.09pm – ‘Absolutely gutted’: Feeney fronts the cameras
Broc Feeney has been left broken hearted in the garages after the catastrophic finish to his race.
He was clearly distraught and was barely keeping his voice even as he showed just how devastated he was.
“I don’t know what to say, I’m gutted,” Feeney said.
“We were real fast, the track was coming to us, I don’t know what the fuel numbers were like but we were real fast out there.
“This place can be the best but it can also be the worst so I’m just absolutely gutted mate.”
Feeney added that he turns 21 “in a couple of weeks” and said he hopes he can come back for many years to come.
5pm – Van Gisbergen heading for glory
Shane van Gisbergen’s last pit stop has put it out with a three corner lead as the future NASCAR star looks to win back-to-back and three of the last four Bathurst races.
It’s a big result but you never know at Mount Panorama.
4.33pm – ‘What on earth has gone on with Broc Feeney’s car?’
Huge drama with 24 laps to go as young Red Bull star Broc Feeney’s Red Bull Camaro has left the youngster in tears after it appeared his gearbox got jammed.
Feeney couldn’t change gears and it has ruined his race as he appeared a near certainty for his first Bathurst podium, if not a race win as he was in a great position fuel-wise, meaning he would have made up time in his final pit stop.
He was in second when he was spotted by commentators getting overtaken as he couldn’t maintain his speed.
Neil Crompton described it on the Supercars broadcast as a “catastrophic situation” for Feeney.
“A slow Red Bull car. It’s a drama for Feeney at a critical stage of the race,” Crompton said.
“This is a gigantic game changer. What on earth has gone on with Broc Feeney’s car? He was in a commanding position from a fuel strategy standpoint.”
“Absolutely devastating,” commentator Greg Murphy said. “This is just torture.”
The Red Bull team got him to go into the garage and miraculously back out on course but on his first outlap, it got stuck almost immediately in second gear and Feeney said he was “too scared” to force it in case it went back into first.
He pitted at the end of the next lap. While his podium dreams were gone, he went back out in order to get a classification for the overall V8 championship.
It appears as though everything is starting to fail as they get to the end of the race as race leader Shane van Gisbergen had suffered a braking issue with 40 laps to go.
“It’s a problem with the brakes,” he could be heard telling his team.
“Brakes don’t feel good here.
“I’ll try and manage it.”
Told repeatedly to “keep pumping it”, van Gisbergen replied: “Pumping is not helping”.
Championship leader Brodie Kostecki is also dealing with a few issues with a steering rack problem.
3.35pm – SVG surging ahead
Shane van Gisbergen is showing why is the best driver in Supercars.
The Kiwi champion is producing blistering lap times, maintaining a comfortable 10-second lead as the race reaches its pointy end.
2.10pm – Curse continues as star’s race ends
James Moffat’s race is over, with the Tickford driver binning his Mustang at The Dipper.
Moffat ran wide on entry through the Esses, leaving himself with no room through the hard left-right combination that takes drivers back down the mountain, and slamming into the wall.
“Heavy contact!” commentator Neil Crompton said.
“This just goes to show how risky this place is – the slightest hiccup in your rhythm and you eat concrete.”
Moffat triggered a safety car as he tried to limp back to the pits, only to end up blocking the pit entry with his mangled car, as drivers made their best rallycross impressions in order to go around him and scramble for a pit stop under the safety car.
Moffat’s crash also brings an end to the Bathurst dreams of co-driver Cameron Waters for yet another year.
Waters, who came to prominence by winning a reality TV show for a drive at the 2011 race alongside TV personality Grant Denyer, has come 2nd, 2nd and 3rd in the last three Bathurst 1000s, but has never won the prestigious race.
James Moffat SLAMS into the wall at The Dipper!
— Supercars (@supercars) October 8, 2023
The third BP Ultimate Safety Car is triggered for the Great Race.
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Moffat, the son of four-time winner Alan Moffatt, too took the blame for the dramatic scenes.
“I just clipped the inside wall there at The Dipper, then that fired me into the outside wall,” Moffat said.
“Hugely disappointed, but I know I’m not the first person to do something like that, and I won’t be the last.
“Just disappointed in myself, I pride myself in not making errors like that. Sorry for all the team, all the guys.
“We were definitely fighting with both hands tied behind our backs today. It was tough out there, but that’s no excuse for what I did.”
1.30pm – Carnage unfolds amid horror show for Brad Jones Racing
The biggest race of the year has finally opened up, with carnage everywhere, and particular rough luck for Brad Jones Racing.
Three out of their four cars were caught up with issues within an hour, with Andre Heimgartner putting his car into a wall, while Macauley Jones spun teammate Jack Smith at the Chase.
Craig Lowndes’ day is all but over, sitting three laps down after his broken gear lever caused an extended pit.
1pm – Tander fumes amid pit lane penalty controversy
The David Reynolds / Garth Tander #26 Mustang for Dick Johnson Racing has been handed a pit lane penalty for overtaking under the safety car.
After Estre ran wide and buried his car at Hell Corner, the corresponding safety car saw a scramble for the pit lane.
The Camaro of Broc Feeney was coming out of the pits as Reynolds rounded the first corner and headed up the mountain, looking to beat Feeney on exit.
Feeney however, reached the pit exit line before Reynolds by a mere half car-length but in his effort to beat Feeney, Reynolds overtook past the line, before promptly dropping back and slotting in behind the Triple Eight car.
The penalty was given regardless, and it had drivers and pundits alike fuming.
Co-driver Garth Tander was livid.
“You watch the replay, and 88 was clearly in front of our car, but for as long as I can remember, and I‘ve been doing this a long time, they usually give you the opportunity to redress under safety car and they didn’t do that,” Tander said in pit lane.
“We did it once the race restarted and they said ‘no, you still have to serve the penalty’.”
Mark Larkham, former driver and pundit, teed off on commentary at the proportion of the penalty.
“I reckon sometimes our sport needs a whack,” Larkham began.
“In this instance, they said ‘oh, maybe we can redress’. Motorsport Australia’s (Head of Motorsport) Adrian Burgess has reminded me, there is no redress rule anymore, for this situation.
“Maybe we need to have another look at that, but what I do know is that over three or four feet, to have a car taken out of the race, to me, is not right.
“We need to look at it.”
12.20pm – First safety car of the day as legend battles nightmare issue
Frenchman Kevin Estre ran wide at Hell Corner, punting his Penrite Mustang into the wall and getting beached in the gravel on exit, triggering the first Safety Car of the day.
Seven-time race winner Craig Lowndes, running for Triple Eight Race Engineering, has come into the pit reporting a broken gear lever mount, and said to media that the team were hoping for a Safety Car.
Kevin Estre collects the wall at Hell Corner!
— Supercars (@supercars) October 8, 2023
The first BP Ultimate Safety Car has been triggered.
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11.20am – Chaos avoided as whole grid gets away clean
The 60th running of the Bathurst 1000 has gotten away to the most drama-free start possible, with barely any contact, let alone chaos on the first lap.
Jamie Whincup in the #88 Camaro is in familiar territory, out in front for Triple Eight as he has so many times before – Whincup has won the race four times, but hasn’t placed on the podium for a decade, when he put his VF Commodore second alongside Paul Dumbrell.
Repco Bathurst 1000 is HERE!
— Supercars (@supercars) October 8, 2023
Whincup with a great start as he takes lead off car #99.
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9.30am – Disaster strikes early for contender
The Sunday morning warm up session turned into a nightmare for Dick Johnson racing and their car 11.
Set to start the race from fifth on the grid the team piloted by Anton de Pasquale and Tony D’Alberto underwent serious work only hours out from the race getting underway.
All cars must make at least one change to its brake pads throughout the race, but the issues arose early for the team which resulted in the car being wheeled into the garage.
This could be make or brake come race time!
— Supercars (@supercars) October 7, 2023
Car #11 sits in the pits whilst the team struggle to complete their brake changes.
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#RepcoSC#Supercars#Bathurst1000pic.twitter.com/j3CEGZsKPp
“We’re continuously seeing issues with this whole system and how they’re going about it,” Fox Sports commentator Greg Murphy said. “Some teams have seem to have got it nailed; it looks like there’s work to do [for DJR] obviously.
“This is going to ruin your race if this goes wrong.
“I feel for the mechanics that are working on these cars and having to set up, getting ready for that car to come in — during the biggest race of the year — and knowing that they’ve had issues through practice.”
8am – Bathurst champ’s strategy conundrum
While the race often turns into a war of attrition, the 2023 running looks set to be a tug of war between tyres and fuel.
Six-time Bathurst winner Mark Skaife believes teams will be scrambling to determine the best strategy for the race with an answer potentially not becoming clear cut until later in the day.
“What you need to do is get out of here as early as you can see,” Skaife said when asked what the focus would be for all teams after the shootout.
“You don’t need to be here to ridiculous o’clock working on cars. Hopefully you can get out of here by eight or nine o’clock and get a good rest.
“The thing that’s important is how far you detune the car from a qualifying car. We already know that the people that weren’t in the top-10 shootout, they’re already working on that. They’ve got those cars already set.
“The cars that were in the top-10, they’ll be looking at what they do, what the strategy is and what we’ve spoken about all weekend — is it a fuel race or is it a tyre race?
“There will be propellers going everywhere on computers with engineers looking at all of the data to understand fuel economy and understand tyre life.”
Complicating matters though, according to the six-time winner, is the fact teams won’t know the answer to that question until “about the middle of the day”.
“So, by the time you get through all that and you’re thinking on your feet, I actually think that we’ll see divergence of strategy,” Skaife said.
“I think you’ll see some drivers try to just get as long out of the tyre as they can possibly get and that really becomes about fuel economy then, that’s a really strategic game and you won’t know it until about lunch time.
“So, an interesting scenario going on in the background at every garage.”
7:30am – Bathurst 1000 starting grid
1. Brodie Kostecki/David Russell (Erebus): 2:04.272
2. Broc Feeney/Jamie Whincup (Triple Eight): 2:04.755
3. Cameron Waters/James Moffat (Tickford): 2:04.778
4. James Golding/Dylan O’Keeffe (PremiAir): 2:04.816
5. Anton de Pasquale/Tony D’Alberto (Dick Johnson Racing): 2:04.916
6. Shane van Gisbergen/Richie Stanaway (Triple Eight): 2:04.997
7. David Reynolds/Garth Tander (Grove): 2:05.151
8. Matthew Payne/Kévin Estre (Grove): 2:05.270
9. Chaz Mostert/Lee Holdsworth (Walkinshaw Andretti United): 2:05.831
10. Will Davison/Alex Davison (Dick Johnson Racing): 2:06.417
11. Thomas Randle/Garry Jacobson (Tickford): 2:05.380
12. Scott Pye/Warren Luff (Team 18): 2:05.442
13. Andre Heimgartner/Dale Wood (Brad Jones Racing): 2:05.470
14. Cameron Hill/Jaylyn Robotham (Matt Stone Racing): 2:05.490
15. Jack Le Brocq/Jayden Ojeda (Matt Stone Racing): 2:05.507
16. James Courtney/Zak Best (Tickford): 2:05.511
17. Will Brown/Jack Perkins (Erebus): 2:05.558
18. Tim Slade/Jonathon Webb (PremiAir): 2:05.584
19. Mark Winterbottom/Michael Caruso (Team 18): 2:05.800
20. Zane Goddard/Craig Lowndes (Triple Eight): 2:05.851
21. Bryce Fullwood/Dean Fiore (Brad Jones Racing): 2:05.941
22. Todd Hazelwood/Tim Blanchard (Blanchard Racing Team): 2:05.955
23. Nick Percat/Fabian Coulthard (Walkinshaw Andretti United): 2:06.020
24. Macauley Jones/Jordan Boys (Brad Jones Racing): 2:06.217
25. Kai Allen/Simona de Silvestro (Dick Johnson Racing): 2:06.242
26. Aaron Love/Jack Kostecki (Blanchard Racing Team): 2:06.531
27. Jack Smith/Jaxon Evans (Brad Jones Racing): 2:07.171
28. Declan Fraser/Tyler Everingham (Tickford): no time
SUNDAY SCHEDULE
8am – 8:20pm: Supercars Warm Up
9am – 9:20am: Supercars Drivers Parade
11:15am: Supercars Race 24, Bathurst 1000 (161 laps)
HOW TO WATCH BATHURST
Every session of the Bathurst 1000 will be broadcast live on Fox Sports and Kayo.
WEATHER FORECAST
There is no rain forecast, with sunny conditions expected on Sunday in Bathurst with daytime temperatures reaching between 17 and 23.
BATHURST 1000 ODDS
Correct as of 7am Sunday, via Sportsbet
Brodie Kostecki/David Russell $2.30
Shane van Gisbergen/Richie Stanaway $4.60
Cam Waters/James Moffat $6.50
Broc Feeney/Jamie Whincup $7
Chaz Mostert/Lee Holdsworth $7.50
2023 SUPERCARS STANDINGS (pre-Bathurst)
1. Brodie Kostecki (Coca-Cola Racing by Erebus/Chevrolet Camaro) – 2171 pts
2. Shane van Gisbergen (Red Bull Ampol Racing/Chevrolet Camaro) – 2016 pts
3. Broc Feeney (Red Bull Ampol Racing/Chevrolet Camaro) – 1967 pts
4. Will Brown (Coca-Cola Racing by Erebus/Chevrolet Camaro) – 1877 pts
5. Andre Heimgartner (Brad Jones Racing/Chevrolet Camaro) – 1680 pts
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