Shane van Gisbergen and Richie Stanaway have won the 2023 Bathurst 1000, piloting the #97 Red Bull Ampol Racing Camaro to victory by a record margin. Shane van Gisbergen was given the car with 64 laps remaining, 400km left, and with it, the lead, jumping the #99 Coca Cola by Erebus Camaro in the pit stop. An astonishing 90-lap green flag run to the finish allowed Van Gisbergen to slowly stretch the gap, taking victory by almost 20 seconds, the largest winning margin since 1999.
“We weren’t the fastest car all week, but we worked on the race car,” said Van Gisbergen after the race. “Richie did a stellar job all day. Thanks to Red Bull Ampol Racing… [and] to all these fans.
“I love this place, I’ll be back.”
It’s a perfect send-off to The Mountain for Van Gisbergen, who will be leaving Supercars at the end of the season.
“I’ll be back one day probably. For now, this is a perfect way to say goodbye.”
For Stanaway, it’s an incredible return to racing after being ‘almost retired’ after his last Supercars stint.
“It’s been incredible to be a part of this team,” said Stanaway. “Teaming up with Shane I knew we had a good shot, but you never know at this place.
“I’ve been quietly hoping for this result all year so for it to come true is an unbelievable feeling.”
Second place was the pole-sitter and favourite for the race based on practice pace; the #99 Coca Cola by Erebus Camaro. After losing the lead with 64 laps left, Kostecki couldn’t seem to match the pace of the Red Bull Ampol Camaros, losing third briefly to the #88 Red Bull Ampol Camaro with a late brake change. A steering issue in the penultimate stint meant Brodie couldn’t have a late charge to pull down the gap, with the #99 looking for a safety car that never eventuated, finishing 20 seconds back.
The first of the Mustangs was the #11 Shell V-Power car of Anton de Pasquale and Tony D’Alberto, a further 14 seconds back. They were elevated onto the podium after the #88 Red Bull Ampol Camaro of Broc Feeney and Jamie Whincup were eliminated by a mechanical drama in the gearbox, only 24 laps from home.
Broc Feeney had been the star of the second part of the race, displaying great car speed to come back through the field despite having to double-stack in the pit lane twice in the early segments of the race. After taking the car over on lap 93, Feeney moved his way into the top 3, and when the #99 had a long pit stop for their brake change, jumped the Erebus Camaro into second. However, coming out of Forrest’s Elbow on lap 137, the mounting for the sequential gearshift broke, jamming the gear lever stuck in second gear. A long repair in the box dropped the distraught Feeney down to the last finished runner.
The key moment in setting up the race came before the half-race distance mark, with the last of the three safety car interventions called at lap 71. James Moffat, running the #6 Monster Energy Mustang firmly in the top 10, brushed the inside wall at the dipper, which cannoned the Mustang hard into the outside wall. Despite Moffat being able to drag the car into the pit lane entry (and blocking it in the process), the debris down the mountain required the Safety Car.
Red Bull Ampol decided to bring in both cars at the Safety Car, despite only pitting 8 laps earlier with the #97. Russell was left out on track in the #99, along with Tony D’Alberto in the #11 Mustang, Warren Luff in the #20 Toyota Forklifts Camaro, and Jaylyn Robotham in the #35 Truck Assist Camaro. Stanaway was given 13 seconds more fuel and was able to exit the pits in 5th, delaying the #88 who took a full stop. However, the double stack only cost Whincup and the #88 one extra position, exiting the pits at the tail end of the top 10.
When the race got back under green, Stanaway made short work of first Luff, then Robotham and D’Alberto, tacking onto the rear of Russell just after the halfway point of the race. The decision by Erebus not to pit the #99 ended up being their downfall, with Russell and Kostecki having to run longer stints for the rest of the race, spending longer in the pits and having to run further on the Dunlop Soft tyre, which began to struggle for grip beyond the 20 lap mark.
Russell pitted from the lead on lap 91, just as he completed his co-driver minimum of 54 laps, while Stanaway was able to stretch that stint longer, to lap 97. A substantially shorter pit stop, despite the driver change to Van Gisbergen, returned the #97 to a 7-second lead which from that point on never looked like coming down without the intervention of the safety car, which never arrived.
The race started in gorgeous sunshine on a cool morning in the NSW central tablelands, with Jamie Whincup getting the best launch off the front row to take the early lead in the #88 Red Bull Ampol Camaro. Will Brown was the early mover, dragging the #9 Coca Cola by Erebus Camaro from 17th up to 5th in the first stint against mostly co-drivers. There was an early big-name casualty, with a gearbox issue for the #888 Supercheap Auto Camaro: On lap 17, Craig Lowndes went to upshift coming out of Griffins Bend, with the mounting bracket holding the gear lever in place braking off. Lowndes was able to limp the car over the top in second gear, but the car went straight into the garage, and they fell off the lead lap to repair the issue.
At the back end of the first stint, it became clearer which teams had good race cars, and which teams were suffering with tyre wear. Cameron Waters, who started the #6 Monster Energy Mustang from third, began to drop down towards the tail of the top 10, while Richie Stanaway moved into 4th after starting 7th.
The first pit stops began to shake up the order, with an almost 50/50 split of main drivers and co-drivers in at lap 25. Kevin Estre was given the keys to the #19 Penrite Racing Mustang at lap 23 for his first taste of Supercars racing at The Mountain and was immediately running as the fastest car on lap 26. Unfortunately, a big lock up into Hell Corner on lap 27 saw the Frenchman run off track, tagging the outside wall and getting bogged in the gravel.
Estre’s moment brought out the safety car to recover him from the gravel and saw those who hadn’t yet pit dive into the lane, including both Whincup in the #88 and Russell in the #99. Importantly, Feeney in the #88 was returned to the track behind his teammate, meaning pit priority would go to the #97 at the next round of stops.
Estre was pulled out of the gravel and put a lap down, and the drama was compounded for the Penrite Racing team who picked up a pit-lane drive-through penalty for the sister #26 car for passing under safety car conditions. As the #88 Red Bull Ampol Camaro of Broc Feeney returned to the circuit from the pits, it exited just ahead of the #26 of David Reynolds. The #88 crossed the ‘Safety Car’ line – the point at which position out of the pits is determined – about a wheel ahead of Reynolds in the #26, claiming the position. However, Reynolds continued past the Camaro on Mountain Straight, and even an attempt to redress once the race went to green wasn’t enough to clear the penalty.
It took only another 9 laps of green-flag running before a second safety car intervention on lap 39. A clumsy coming together between Scott Pye in the #20 Toyota Forklifts Camaro and the #8 R&J Batteries Camaro with Dale Wood behind the wheel saw Wood off at Murray’s Corner and stuck in the gravel trap. It looked like the pass had been made cleanly, but the rear ‘hip’ of the #20 locked into the front of the #8, which fired it off the road.
The second safety car in close succession gave Estre and Matt Payne a chance to get back on the lead lap, with 24 of the 28 cars making the tour into pit lane. Notably, this forced the Red Bull Ampol and Erebus teams, amongst many others, to double-stack their cars, dropping the #9 Erebus Camaro outside the top 10, and the #88 Red Bull Camaro down to 17th place.
It was chaos at the restart, with the four leading cars running on older tyres getting hassled by the chasing pack. Declan Fraser was the first to bear the brunt of the chasers in the #56 Tradie Beer Mustang, getting muscled wide by Brodie Kostecki and falling out of the groove, culminating in a massive moment at the Chase where Fraser arrived all locked up and managed to thread the needle through a gap in traffic, firing into the gravel. He was able to get back on track and keep going, but well down the order.
Simultaneously, Brad Jones Racing teammates Macauley Jones and Jack Smith came together at the chase, with Jones tagging and spinning Smith while trying to pass. The damage to both cars was substantial, with both the #96 Pizza Hut Camaro and the #4 SCT Logistics Camaro spending an extended period in the pits to repair broken suspension and steering arms. They would both eventually make it to the finish, with the #4 of Smith and Jaxon Evans 4 laps down, and the #96 of Jones and Jordan Boys 12 laps down.
Brodie Kostecki and Richie Stanaway were in a league of their own on the restart, navigating the cars that hadn’t stopped and stretching out to a 12-second lead over the rest of the pack. Stanaway was able to keep Kostecki nearby, at one point bringing the gap down to under a second, but Kostecki responded, keeping the #97 at bay. They were the fastest on track, along with the charging Jamie Whincup in the #88 Camaro. Despite being buried in the pack, Whincup was able to move his way into the top 10, and entered the next round of pit stops sitting 9th, just behind the battle for 7th between James Moffat in the #6 Monster Energy Mustang and the #34 Truck Assist Camaro of Jaylyn Robotham.
The pit stops with 100 laps left saw a lead change, with the Red Bull Ampol crew able to turn around the #97’s required brake change faster than Erebus could complete their driver change in the #99, giving Richie Stanaway the effective race lead, although with other cars around them still to pit.
The race was energised once again by a dramatic engine failure for the already wounded #8 R&J Batteries Camaro down Conrod Straight. A huge plume of smoke accompanied by flames was seen out of the #8, with the car able to trickle into the lane, coming to a rest right next to the fire marshals. The TV broadcast confirmed a ‘hole in the bottom of the engine’ as the failure.
But while that was occurring in pit lane, Moffat had his moment at the Dipper. The resulting Safety Car saw plenty into the pits, including the race-leading #97 and third-placed #88 Red Bull Ampol Racing Camaros, who were able to enter and exit the lane. The same could not be said for those further down the field, who arrived at pit entry to see the stricken #6 blocking the entry – the broken right front refusing to turn the car into the lane. Drivers had to take to the grass to make their way around the Mustang, with James Golding in the #31 Nulon Racing Camaro the worst affected by the pit entry blockage.
The race returned to green with 87 laps remaining – almost 550km of running still to go. Both Stanaway and Whincup were able to make progress through the field – Stanaway from fifth, Whincup from 9th – while both David Russell in the #99 and Tony D’Alberto in the #11 Shell V-Power Mustang controlled the head of the field. During this phase of the race, teams ticked off their brake change and minimum co-driver lap requirements, with Russell and D’Alberto pitting at the earliest opportunity to hand over to Kostecki and De Pasquale respectively, while both Stanaway and Whincup ran longer; Stanaway completing 80 laps – half the distance – before giving the car back to Van Gisbergen. Teams were gauging their pace against their competitors and trying to position themselves as best they could, looking for a possible safety car to play their cards right and capitalise on pace late in the race.
But the safety car never came along. The last half of the race ran entirely without interruption, with barely a spin, slide or contact to mention. But it wasn’t a clean run to the finish from the driver’s seats: Both Red Bull Ampol and Coca Cola by Erebus decided to make a brake change at the penultimate stop, which proved costly for the #99, as the extra 10 seconds in the stop dropped them behind the #88 of Feeney and Whincup. However, the focus was significant concern up ahead in the #97, with Van Gisbergen immediately coming over the radio after the brake change complaining of a ‘low’ pedal. He lost 5 seconds of his gap back to Feeney in the following laps but was able to settle into a rhythm as the brakes finally bedded in, maintaining the gap.
The Safety Car that teams were looking for almost came at lap 129, with a big slide for James Courtney in the #5 Snowy Rivers Caravans Mustang at McPhillamy Park. Courtney, running 7th at the time, had to gather the slide over the hump and managed to skate the car through the gravel trap on the top of the mountain, and out the other side, without making contact with the wall.
But then, heartbreak for Feeney in the #88. Coming down the Elbow, the gear lever shifted in the casing, and jammed the car in second gear, making it the second Triple 8 built Camaro to suffer an issue with the gearshift housing, after the #888’s failure at the beginning of the race. A despondent Feeney brought that car into the pits, and out of contention for the race.
With the #88 out of contention, the focus for Red Bull Ampol moved to ensure the #97 got home safely through its final pit stop. Ahead of the last stops, both Kostecki in the #99, and Van Gisbergen in the #97 started complaining about steering issues, with Van Gisbergen being seen through on-board shots to be wiggling the steering back and forth without a corresponding response from the car. It set up a tense final stint, with neither of the two leaders assured of making it home.
Ultimately, the #97 survived, with Van Gisbergen and Stanaway winning by 20 seconds. Kostecki set a 2:07.8 on the last lap, only 2 tenths away from that car’s fastest lap all day, just to show the pace was still in the car, on his way to second place – his second podium with David Russell. De Pasquale and Tony D’Alberto rounded out the podium in the #11 Shell V-Power Mustang, never really threatening the battle for the lead.
A trio of Mustangs followed; Chaz Mostert and Lee Holdsworth in the #25 Mobil 1 Optus car, followed by the #26 Penrite Racing machine of David Reynolds and Garth Tander. The #26 had completely changed their strategy after the early penalty, electing to run as long as possible to save a pit stop at the end, which saw them come up the order late in the day.
6th was James Courtney and Zac Best in the #5 Snow Rivers Caravans Mustang, ahead of the sole untroubled Brad Jones Racing Camaro – the #14 Middy’s Electrical Camaro of Bryce Fullwood and Dean Fiore. Will Brown and Jack Perkins finished in 8th in the #9 Coca Cola by Erebus Camaro, never able to recover from their pit-lane double-stack, with the top 10 rounded out by the #34 Truck Assist Camaro of Jack Le Brocq and Jayden Ojeda, and the #31 Nulon Camaro of James Golding and Dylan O’Keeffe.
Matt Payne and Kevin Estre managed to recover to finish in 11th place in the #19 Penrite Mustang but were looking for a safety car to help cut down the gap after they were given the ‘lucky dog’ to get back on the lead lap. Just missing the top 10 is a result that doesn’t match their pace during the week, but is a good recovery after falling off the lead lap.
Porsche Formula E driver Simona De Silvestro had a difficult day in the #98 Shell V-Power Mustang, with her and Kai Allen finishing down in 20th position. Simona was tagged on multiple occasions throughout the race, being spun into the chase in her first stint and then into the cutting on her last, in what was a tough return to Supercars for the Swede.
For Van Gisbergen, it is his third Bathurst win, in what is – for now – his last 1000 as a main-game driver. For friend and fellow Kiwi, Stanaway, it was an emphatic stamp of quality after his impressive wildcard appearance last year. The pair becomes the second all-kiwi driver pairing to win the great race, after Steven Richards and Greg Murphy won together in 1999, coincidentally the last time the great race was decided by a margin of over 20 seconds. The gap on that occasion, was 25.3 seconds.
Van Gisbergen leaves having cut the margin to Brodie Kostecki in the championship down to 131 points, with 600 points left on offer this season. The Supercars head to the Gold Coast next for the Gold Coast 500, before wrapping up on the streets of Adelaide for the Adelaide 500.
Image courtesy of Red Bull Ampol Racing
