There’s nowhere quite like Mount Panorama, and there’s no race quite like the Bathurst 1000.
Australia’s most evocative touring car race has been making motorsport memories for 59 years.
Heroes have been formed on these winding roads. Titles have been won and lost. Myths have been made and hearts have been broken.
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What history will be written with the race’s 60th running this weekend?
The wait is over. The journey to the 60th running of the Bathurst 1000 starts today.
WHO WILL MASTER GEN3’S STERNEST TEST?
Mount Panorama has hosted the premier 1000-kilometre feature race of the Supercars series for 60 years, but rare has it seen changes as significant as those set to be unleashed this weekend.
The all-new Gen3 cars have stood up to the test of the season so far, including at the precursor Sandown 500, a half-distance dress rehearsal for Bathurst.
While reliability niggles have been constant and tweaks regularly required, there’s confidence they can put on a show this weekend.
But they’ll behave completely differently to the previous-spec cars the drivers had become used to for a generation.
“We’ve made the biggest architectural change to the cars since 1993 with Gen3 and the Mustang and Camaro,” Fox Motorsport expert Mark Skaife says. “We’ve got just a huge magnitude of change.”
It’ll be on the wild ride up and down the mountain where the car changes will be most keenly felt — and where the drivers, particularly the less experienced co-drivers, will be most keenly challenged.
“When you put co-drivers in the high-risk areas — across the top of the hill and through the Chase, for instance — with the downforce reduction that we have on these cars this year, the cars will move around a lot more,” Skaife explains. “They’ll be harder to drive.
“So for co-drivers that haven’t done as much work and haven’t been in the cars as much, and given the changes that have been made, the gravity of change, you have to go into the race with a different mindset.
“You won’t be able to sprint like we have been sprinting for the last 10 or 15 years. You’ll have to have a situation where you go into the race having to think on your feet and having to understand what you need late in the race to win it.
“It’s going to have a much different rhythm and a much different feel to it.”
Throw in Dunlop bringing its soft tyres for the first time, plus all the new procedures the Gen3 cars require, and it’ll be a steeper learning curve than usual this weekend.
Master Gen3, master Bathurst? It’s never that simple, but it’ll be a big part of the puzzle.
Top 10 BRUTAL Bathurst 1000 crashes | 05:21
WILL THE PARITY ISSUE FINALLY ERUPT?
There’s no Great Race without great intrigue, and the biggest political battle of the season has been saved the sport’s biggest stage.
Ford teams have grumbled about a perceived disparity between the Mustang and the Chevrolet Camaro all season. It culminated in an official inquest in June that made changes to the Mustang by July aimed at boosting downforce, which was thought to be the root problem behind a host of issues preventing the Blue Oval from winning races.
But those modifications haven’t been enough to quell the disquiet, and trouble is brewing on Bathurst eve.
Ford has proposed — and has manufactured and prepared to fit — more aero changes, this time to the front bar and rear wing, but they’ll need approval from the category first.
A meeting had been called between the sport and all teams for Wednesday morning before being abandoned that day. Instead Supercars reportedly met with the stables of each manufacturer independently, with Ford lobbying for its changes and General Motors dead against.
There is scope for the sport to act without an official parity inquest, the trigger for which hasn’t been reached since the last inquiry, but there is considerable debate about whether a majority of teams must agree first. With only 44 per cent of the regular entries, Ford certainly does not have a majority.
Supercars could act on its own if it found Ford’s argument convincing, but it would be a seriously controversial move.
On the other hand, Autosport has reported paddock speculation that a Ford boycott could be on the cards — and Ford Performance chief Mark Rushbrook has raised the prospect of a walkout already this season.
It’s a tense start to this year’s Bathurst 1000 and a wheel is yet to be turned.
SVG admits Kostecki has the quicker car | 01:25
WILL THIS WEEKEND BE PIVOTAL TO THE CHAMPIONSHIP?
Let’s get back to matters thoroughly on track, because for all of Mount Panorama’s grandeur, it’s still one piece of the 2023 championship puzzle, albeit a large one.
The drivers title standings have realistically whittled themselves down to four drivers with varying levels of realistic championship potential.
Drivers championship standings
1. Brodie Kostecki: 2171 points
2. Shane van Gisbergen: 2016 points (-155 points)
3. Broc Feeney: 1967 points (-204 points)
4. Will Brown: 1877 points (-294 points)
There are still 900 points up for grabs over the last five races over three rounds, with Bathurst owning a third of those.
No driver can win the title this weekend — mathematically or probably — but they can lose it.
A failure to finish by any driver other than perhaps Kostecki would immediately count them out bar something really wacky happening on the Gold Coast or Adelaide.
But those same drivers have to use this opportunity to make inroads on the title leader. Walking away from Bathurst with the standings largely unchanged would be a boon for Kostecki.
The twist in the story is that only two teams are involved in the drivers title push, with Erebus’s pair facing off against Triple Eight’s teammates.
It has the potential to put each team in a potentially tricky situation on strategy.
It’s not unusual to see double-stacking at Bathurst, particularly around incidents and safety cars.
Would Erebus prioritise Kostecki’s given Brown is considerably further down the title standings? You could certainly mount the argument.
But it’s a much harder call at Triple Eight, where SVG and Feeney are much more closely matched — and Feeney and co-driving team boss Jamie Whincup won Sandown, giving them momentum.
It’s a subplot within the championship story arc that could prove fascinating on Sunday.
Lap of the Gods: Murphy’s Mountain epic | 05:25
WHO OF THE NEXT GENERATION WILL STEP UP?
Whatever happens to the championship, there’s a sense that we’re at the transition between eras at this year’s Bathurst 1000, and not only in a technical sense with the new car.
The 2023 season has been largely dominated by young guns, and with SVG heading to the US and uncertain about his prospects of so much as a co-drive in the coming years given NASCAR’s absurdly busy schedule, centre stage is being left wide open to a youth revolution.
“The sport does go through this every eight or 10 years or so,” Skaife says. “You’ve got James Courtney, Will Davidson, Mark Winterbottom — those sorts of experienced guys in the field — and then you look at 20-year-old Matt Payne and 20-year-old Broc Feeney. You’ve got Will Brown and Brodie Kostecki, who are both 25 years of age, and we’ve seen Thomas Randle have his first podium this year.
“We’ve had 15 different drivers on the podium this year.
“It has energised some of those younger drivers who have been able to really wrap their brain around what is probably a bit of a different driver technique and the custom and practice of driving the old cars is sort of thrown out the window, which has been a real revelation.”
So many of the sport’s folkloric stories were forged around Mount Panorama. It’d be fitting if one of the young crowd took their chance this year.
Holdsworth looks towards Bathurst glory | 04:15
CAN ANY TEAM CLAIM A SLICE OF HISTORY?
Some slices of history are up for grabs elsewhere this weekend, quite apart from the event itself celebrating 60 years at Mount Panorama.
Last year Triple Eight collected its ninth Bathurst 1000 victory via Van Gisbergen and Garth Tander, drawing it level with the Holden Dealer Team for most wins by a team at Mount Panorama. Eight of HDT’s wins came courtesy of Peter Brock.
Triple Eight has the chance to set new ground this season.
Walkinshaw Andretti United, meanwhile, can draw level with T8 if either Chaz Mostert and Lee Holdsworth or Nick Percat and Fabian Coulthard can seal the deal. While WAU had a shocker at Sandown, it’s on a six-year podium streak at Bathurst, including victory in 2021. Its previous seven triumphs came under the guise of the Holden Racing Team.
Tickford, already with two poles for the year, could claim a slice of Saturday glory with what would be a record-equalling eighth pole position, a benchmark currently held by WAU.
Craig Lowndes, having raced in an unprecedented 300th Supercars round at last year’s Bathurst 1000, will make his 30th consecutive start at Mount Panorama this weekend, an astonishing feat of longevity.
F1 car on The Mountain: V8-powered RB7 | 12:52
HOW CAN I WATCH IT?
The 2023 Bathurst 1000 is live and ad-break free during racing on Kayo and Fox Sports.
The dedicated Bathurst 1000 channel will run from Monday, 2 October, until Sunday, 8 October, on Fox Sports 506.
The following times are all in AEDT.
Thursday — coverage starts at 7:25am
Practice 1 (all drivers): 1:20pm to 2:20pm
Practice 2 (co-drivers): 4:50pm to 5:50pm
Friday — coverage starts at 7:25am
Practice 3 (all drivers): 10:00am to 11:00am
Practice 4 (all drivers): 1:05pm to 2:05pm
Qualifying: 4:15pm to 4:55pm
Saturday — coverage starts at 8:15am
Practice 5 (all drivers): 10:00am to 11:00am
Practice 6 (co-drivers): 1:00pm to 2:00pm
Top-10 shootout: 5:05pm to 5:50pm
Sunday — coverage starts at 7:15am
Warm-up: 8:00am to 8:20am
Drivers parade: 9:00am to 9:20am
The 60th running of the Bathurst 1000: 11:15am (161 laps)
