MOTORSPORT: A Bathurst for the ages

Now that the noise and excitement, even hysteria, have died down, the reality is that Ford Performance Racing has won Australia’s premier motor race back-to-back -- after almost a decade of coming up short at Mt Panorama.

The Blue Oval fans are adamant that the manufacturer must remain in V8 Supercar racing, even though these successes have come as its support for the sport has diminished.

This victory has created a new national hero, 22-year-old Chaz Mostert, and made veteran Paul Morris a belated winner of the classic.

The finishing order Sunday was Ford, Nissan, Holden, Mercedes – and yet a Volvo led more of the race than any of them.

This was the finest day in the era of the new-generation V8 Supercars, despite the event going two hours longer than anticipated – after 10 safety car interventions, 13 pitstops by the winning Falcon, and a one-hour adjournment of the race for track repairs.

There will be a “post-mortem” on that, but (leaving aside the carnage, the penalties, the hard-luck stories, the stray kangaroo and football, and the safety car losing its roof lights) what this latest Bathurst has taught or reminded us is that:

>> The Great Race can be won from anywhere on the grid – Mostert and Morris did it from last and the latter put the Falcon in the wall at the troubled Griffin’s Bend).

>> You only need to be in front at the end of the last lap to take all the glory – Mostert snatched the lead just a couple of kilometers from the chequered flag.

>> Despite running dry on fuel after one of the great Mt Panorama drives, also from the back of the field, Jamie Whincup has edged closer to a record sixth V8 Supercar Championship by finishing ahead of his main rivals, FPR’s Mark Winterbottom (sixth yesterday) and Triple Eight Race Engineering teammate Craig Lowndes (10th yesterday).

Ultimately this moment belongs to FPR – and particularly Mostert.

Making just his second start in the Great Race, he has the perfect personality for V8 Supercar racing.

He said of his monstering of Whincup at the finish, knowing that the Triple Eight man was down to his last drops of fuel, that he was telling the Holden ahead of him to “cough, you bastard, cough”.

“This is my third win [in V8 Supercars, the earlier two when he was on loan from FPR to Dick Johnson Racing last season] and for that to come at the Bathurst 1000 is very special,” he said.

“The constant safety cars helped us get back into position. I never thought I would get into the top 10, let alone win.”

Co-driver Morris said that “a lot of people thought it was a weird decision when [FPR bosses] Tim Edwards and Rod Nash gave me the drive, but they clearly knew what they were doing”.

“It was a hell of a day,” Morris said.

“When I hit the tyre wall [at T2, Griffin’s] I wasn’t expecting it, but thankfully there was no real damage to the car, so we got away with it. I was just trying to not get tied up in anyone’s accident really.

“Thanks to Chaz I am now a Bathurst 1000 winner… I’ve ticked that box.”

Edwards said FPR “kept our head, had fast cars all day and we came through”.

“The last lap is all they [Mostert and Morris] led, but that’s all they needed to,” Edwards said.

“There was an amazing amount of Ford supporters at the podium showing just why V8 Supercars and our team are the place for them [Ford] to be.”

Ford and FPR are working on the FG X Falcon for racing.

Up on the podium yesterday for Nissan after inheriting second place as Whincup’s Commodore spluttered were James Moffat – son of four-time Ford victor in the 1000, Allan – and Taz Douglas.

“The red flag [that halted the race for an hour], in a way, saved us, because we were able to repair the [badly battered Altima] car, and from that point on it was just about staying out of trouble,” Moffat said.

Douglas said the #360 Nissan had been “very quick by itself, but we struggled in a pack”.

Moffat said Douglas “brought me back a car that looked like it had come out of a scene from Dukes of Hazard … but it was good enough for me!

“I was screaming on the radio to the engineers, giving them an ear-bashing, but the result is unbelievable [with the two Kelly brothers Nissans finishing seventh and eighth]. We’re definitely making ground.”

Of all the Holdens it was that of Nick Percat, winning co-driver with Garth Tander for Holden Racing Team three years ago, and British visitor Oliver Gavin that filled the third podium spot.

Ironically, Tander didn’t even get to drive in this year’s race after co-driver Warren Luff’s big crash with Lowndes in Saturday practice.

Gavin’s glory came 20 years after he was in the paddock at the Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide on the brink of becoming a Formula One driver with the lowly Pacific team.

Contrasting with the fairytales of those who finished at the front at Mt Panorama was the heartbreak for the young New Zealanders who had done so much for so long – Scott McLaughlin in the Volvo S60 and Shane Van Gisbergen in the Tekno Autosports Holden.

McLaughlin hit the wall at The Cutting while dicing – but not making contact – with “The Giz”.

“We had a really strong car that was good enough to win the race,” McLaughlin said.

“I didn’t know he [Van Gisbergen] was there until the last second and paid the price. I just got caught in the ‘marbles’ of rubber and couldn’t back out of it.”

Christian Dahl, the owner of Volvo’s racing associate Polestar that has linked up with Garry Rogers Motorsport this season, was proud that “we led almost half the race in our first year at Bathurst”.

Van Gisbergen stalled the Commodore he shared with Tekno owner Jonathon Webb when he pitted under the final yellow safety caution and could not restart. The time lost relegated them to 16th, three laps down, and just one spot ahead of the Volvo of McLaughlin and Frenchman Alex Premat in the end.

It was an even crueler day for Brad Jones Racing, Dick Johnson Racing and the second Erebus Mercedes in a Bathurst with an attrition rate unfamiliar in the modern era.

It had been thought, going to The Mountain last week, that the race would be run in record time, but despite new lap records, it wound up being as slow as drawing teeth.

Yet it’s a Bathurst that will live in many memories forever.

Perhaps the greatest of all the Great Races... And a reinforcement of why (along with America’s Indianapolis 500 and Daytona 500 and Europe’s Le Mans 24-Hour), it stacks up as one of the very best in all of motor racing.

V8 Supercar Championship driver standings after 30 races – 1 Jamie Whincup (Triple Eight Race Engineering, Holden Commodore) 2547 points; 2 Mark Winterbottom (Ford Performance Racing, Ford Falcon) 2250; 3 Craig Lowndes (Triple Eight, Holden) 2208; =4 Shane van Gisbergen (Tekno Autosports, Holden) and James Courtney (Holden Racing Team) 2096; 6 Fabian Coulthard (Brad Jones Racing, Holden) 2024; 7 Chaz Mostert (FPR) 1994; 8 Scott McLaughlin (Volvo S60) 1785; 9 Garth Tander (HRT) 1662; 10.  Will Davison (Erebus Motorsport, Mercedes) 1542.