In a dominating display, Erebus Motorsport’s Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood secured their maiden Repco Bathurst 1000 title.
In a surprisingly chaos-free event, which featured just one safety car period on lap 138, Kostecki held off the advances of Red Bull Ampol Racing’s Broc Feeney in a thrilling conclusion.
Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood led throughout as the reigning champion started from pole, with minor dramas occurring for key rivals. This included Cam Waters after he made a mistake at Hell Corner necessitating a flick spin down the escape road.
It appeared the race was to go all-green until Penrite Racing’s Matt Payne found the fence at The Cutting to be the one and only retirement.
Records were set in 25 cars greeting the finish, 19 of which on the lead lap and a the race time being under six hours at 5h 58m.
Feeney and seven-time champion Jamie Whincup were third, marking the Red Bull Ampol Racing team principal’s first podium at Bathurst in 11 years.
A distant third were teammates Will Brown and Scott Pye from Waters/Moffat, Chaz Mostert/Lee Holdsworth, James Golding/David Russell, Anton De Pasquale/Tony D’Alberto, Jack Le Brocq/Jayden Ojeda, Richie Stanaway/Dale Wood and Cameron Hill/Cameron Crick.
Brown extended his championship lead to 204-points as teammate Feeney, with Mostert a further 51-points behind heading to the Gold Coast on October 25-27.