2019 Bathurst 1000 Report Card- Truly the greatest race?

The 2019 Bathurst 1000 was yet another thrilling edition of the Great Race, maybe it even was the Greatest ever. There were some scintillating performances, bad luck, cheating and even a historic first win for Roger Penske at the Mountain. In this post I’ll take a look at who finished where and how well each car did over the day, in reverse order.

26th- #14 (Freightliner Racing- Slade/Walsh)- N/A

This car lasted five corners of the race. Not really anything that can be taken from them before a bouncing Scott Pye put Slade in the wall and out.

25th- #35 (Matt Stone Racing- Hazlewood/Smith)- D

A below par race compared to where the 35 has been for a lot of the season was compounded by a massive crash at the grate on lap 102, putting Hazlewood in hospital with a neck complaint.

24th- #56 (Kostecki Brothers Racing- Kostecki/Kostecki)- C

The cousins fought hard after several issues occurred for them, including a spin and one of the most bizarre formation lap incidents in history when Brodie had carbon monoxide piped through his breathing apparatus instead of air. He fortunately recovered, but the car did not after spinning at the top of the hill, creating another hazard after dumping its engine coolant all over the track necessitating an unconventional sand trap.

23rd- #99 (Erebus- De Pasquale/Brown)- E

This car was plagued with issues- two spins with Will Brown at the wheel were followed by a bizarre issue with the engine cutting out just as the Safety Car was called for the Kosteckis, and was then complemented by a stuck throttle pitching the car into the most popular wall of the day at Reid Park.

22nd- #7 (Kelly Racing- Heimgartner/Fullwood)- B

The #7 was fast all week, with Heimgartner being superb and Fullwood putting in a big stint as co-driver. However, the only chinks in the whole weekend were firstly picking a bad strategy right at the death and then Heimgartner doing what so many other drivers have (Todd Kelly, Winterbottom (twice!) etc) and hitting the Forest Elbow wall within the last five laps of the race. I think Heimgartner will win a race before Bathurst 2020 whether in the newly-competitive Nissan or in the Ford Mustang as Kelly is rumoured to be changing to for 2020.

21st- #6 (Monster Energy Racing- Waters/Caruso)- B

Waters and Caruso were both magnificent, but what chose it would not be their day was not the Mountain but the Mostert, with Chaz’s crash into him at the Chase on lap 121 ruining both of their days and robbing Tickford of a potential podium.

20th- #3 (Rabble.club Racing- Jacobson/Fiore)- B

Garry and Dean were on for one of the #3’s best results this year and a top 10 finish when a moment of madness with Richie Stanaway put them one lap down when they were hit into the first corner’s sand trap.

19th- #27 (NAPA- Rossi/Hinchcliffe)- C+

For a debut event for two Indycar stars who have never driven a Supercar before, it was a mighty impressive race, only blighted by a visit to the Murrays sandtrap.

18th- #19 (Tekno- Le Brocq/Webb)- C

A solid race, let down by a mistake in the final safety car by Le Brocq meaning they received a post race penalty.

17th- #21 (Cooldrive- Jones/Canto)- C

Another solid race that wasn’t focused on much, except when Canto speared off at the first corner.

16th- #55 (Supercheap Auto Racing- Mostert/Moffat)- D+

James Moffat was herculean in his defense against a host of full-time drivers. The car was in serious contention for a podium position. Then Chaz Mostert stupidly takes out Waters and ruins Tickford’s day. A solid E if not for the efforts of Moffat. Mostert has proved once again he has some Bathurst difficulties with not crashing, having hit the #6 twice in a row and also having been in incidents in both 2018 and 2019 at the 12 hour.

15th- #8 (Brad Jones Racing- Percat/Blanchard)- C-

Only a pass as the tyre failure that ruined their day was not their fault. The pit lane penalty (for the same reason as the Tekno car) that dropped them behind Simona, however, definitely was.

14th- #78 (Team Harvey Norman- de Silvestro/Rullo)- B

A good effort leads to a good result for Simona, with the car just going off the lead lap before a Safety Car ruining their chances of anything better than 14th. Rullo was quite… energetic at times over the top of the mountain, nearly hitting Scott McLaughlin at one stage.

13th- #33 (GRM- Stanaway/Pither)- C

GRM may have just saved their team with a brilliant performance (but not final result) at Bathurst. Stanaway looked good for a top 10 before he got tangled with Jacobson and was lucky to only bump the tyre wall as opposed to getting stuck in the sandtrap.

12th- #34 (GRM- Golding/Muscat)- A

As Richard Muscat said- “We were on for an incredible result before the wheel nut came loose”. A herculean effort from Golding which had him in contention for a podium finish. For me this is even better than Mostert’s performance in 2014 as GRM have been abysmal this year and to be third due to car pace and not just strategy, in the Bathurst 1000, in a ‘backmarker’ car, was insane for them.

11th #23 (23Red- Davison/Davison)- B

A good race. There were not many mistakes from either Will or Alex, or from their pit crew. The strategy didn’t work out but that’s racing.

10th- #5 (Tickford- Holdsworth/Randle)- B

The off-kilter strategy for Lee and Tom actually caused them to lead at the end of the second Safety Car. They finished 10th, having been forced by their early pitstop to take the strategy option that didn’t quite play out due to the lack of Safety Car.

9th- #15 (Kelly Racing- Kelly/Wood)- A-

They fell back in the final few laps due to the fuel conservation they had to do to finish but Rick Kelly and Dale Wood were superb all race, and along with Andre Heimgartner have provided hope for the rest of the year for Nissan fans.

8th- #2 (Walkinshaw Andretti United- Pye/Luff)- C

Another solid race, mostly mistake free. The one incident the car was involved in, the first lap elimination of Tim Slade, was not his fault as the car bounced across the kerb.

7th- #18 (IRWIN Racing- Winterbottom/Richards)- B+

A very good race for the Team 18 car, with Richards doing very well again as a co driver. Frosty was also excellent and they were one of the few teams who were high enough after stopping around lap 140 that it actually brought them a net gain of spots.

6th- #12 (DJR Team Penske- Coulthard/D’Alberto)- D-

Safetycargate.

5th- #9 (Erebus- Reynolds/Youlden)- C

It wasn’t a good week for Erebus. Youlden had already crashed on Thursday, the car qualified 22nd, and spun twice during the race. But they proved they were masters of the race by executing an immaculate late strategy and then pulling a fifth from the charred wreck of their weekend.

4th- #888 (Red Bull HRT- Whincup/Lowndes)- A-

The late strategy cost them but aside from that and a sketchy moment for Lowndes at Murray’s, the ‘Bathurst Dream Team’ were immaculate all day. They missed out narrowly from third and missed out only because of the late safety car from a win.

3rd- #22 (Walkinshaw Andretti United- Courtney/Perkins)- B

It wasn’t a great start for James and Jack. They had a early unwanted pitstop with a slow leak in the tyre and were at one point 24th roughly halfway through the race. Then their strategy proved to be masterful as to when to stop and when not to, with regards to the Safety Cars, and not even damage resulted from rubbing a wheel at the Reid Park wall and narrowly avoiding the fate of the #56, #99 an #14 who all crashed at the same wall could stop JC from hanging on to third in his 10th and last Bathurst with the team before he joins Tekno Autosports in 2020.

2nd- #97 (Red Bull HRT- Van Gisbergen/Tander)- A-

If the door had not come open for SVG, then they may have won. He was fortunately able to get it shut unlike Will Brown in Super2 the previous day, and he pushed McLaughlin all the way for the win. A highlight of the race interviews was codriver Tander’s attempts to claim that the #12’s nefarious attempt to hold the field had benefited them.

1st- #17 (DJR- McLaughlin/Premat)- A-

It’s a shame for McLaughlin, so often Bathurst’s nearly-man, that his maiden win will be under both a parity cloud and a team orders cloud given Safetycargate. Missing out in 2016 after the infamous Lap 151 Incident, and in 2017 when his engine failed, McLaughlin finally took a win this year. It wasn’t without incident, codriver Premat rubbing panels with Craig Lowndes in the mid stages and then flatspotting his tires leading to him falling to 4th, but Scott fought back and, assisted by Chaz Mostert and sneaky tactics from the 12, took the win.

A couple of other things I wanted to finish on:

· The top performer in the race for me was James Golding. His performance and strategy was brilliant beyond words.

· The Safetycargate involving Coulthard did not benefit Mclaughlin. He got undercut by Whincup, who was ahead of Coulthard at the time, then stalled and ended up behind the #19 and #21 who were originally between him and Fabian.

· Late mail- GRM are willing to fund the control front suspension upright that they would require to stay in the sport. Maybe Golding’s performance affected Boost’s decision?