Shane van Gisbergen heads to the USA next season as a three-time winner of the Repco Bathurst 1000, following a commanding performance at Mount Panorama yesterday.
Paired with Richie Stanaway, the Red Bull Ampol Racing duo aced the mid-race strategic plays to romp home to a 20sec victory, in the process becoming the second all-New Zealand combination to win the Great Race, following in the footsteps of Steven Richards and Greg Murphy in 1999.
Notably, it was the 10th Bathurst 1000 victory for the Triple Eight Race Engineering squad.
However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for the pair, with van Gisbergen nursing the car home with multiple niggling issues in the closing laps.
With only four races left in the season, the victory sees van Gisbergen close to 131 points behind polesitter and Supercars series leader Brodie Kostecki, who finished second in the Coca-Cola Chevrolet he shared with David Russell.
“What an awesome day. Richie drove awesome and it’s been so cool to have him a part of the team and a part of this experience this year,” said van Gisbergen.
“I’m really going to miss this place and miss the fans, and it was an amazing experience on that podium.
“The team did a fantastic job. We were a little bit under the radar this week doing our race runs and just being methodical about our setup and tuning it as we went.”
For Stanaway, the result is the culmination of a remarkable career turnaround, which saw him effectively retire after the 2019 season, before being picked up for a wildcard drive last year, while in 2024 he will return to full-time competition at Penrite Racing.
Kostecki, meanwhile, starred in the preliminaries and picked up a convincing pole position, however, he ultimately came up just short on race day.
Ford was never truly in the outright calculations throughout after firing a parity shot pre-race, with Anton De Pasquale and Tony D’Alberto claiming third for Shell V-Power Racing.
They led home the similar Mustangs of Chaz Mostert/Lee Holdsworth (Mobil 1/Optus), David Reynolds/Garth Tander (Penrite Racing), and James Courtney/Zak Best (Snowy River Caravans).
There were numerous tales of woe from the 161-lap enduro.
The second of the Red Bull Ampol Chevrolets, as piloted by Broc Feeney and Jamie Whincup, encountered a heartbreaking gear shift issue while in second position late after leading during the opening exchanges, while the favoured Brad Jones Racing Chevy of Andre Heimgartner and Dale Wood suffered an early engine failure.
Cam Waters’ run of Bathurst podium finishes ended on three when James Moffat crashed the Monster Ford Mustang on lap 70, while Mark Winterbottom and Michael Caruso (Dewalt Chevrolet) were trapped in the pits when they ran out of fuel on the final circuit and were subsequently not classified.
Another high-profile Chevrolet to suffer issues was the Supercheap Auto-backed wildcard of Craig Lowndes and Zane Goddard, which was plagued by gear shifter issues.
The penultimate round of the Repco Supercars Championship is set for the Gold Coast on October 28-29.
Race Results – 161 laps
Championship points:
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