Kostecki and Hazelwood triumph after dramatic Bathurst 1000 finish

Just when the 2026 Bathurst 1000 looked like it was going to end as a predictable but fast, no-safety-car sprint, two twists set up an unbelievable finish that delivered Ford, Dick Johnson Racing, Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood and win that will be talked about for years.

The team’s Ford Mustang dominated the middle of the race and looked to have one hand on the Peter Brock Trophy until their fifth of sixth pitstops. The team elected to make a second front brake change, it went wrong and they lost around 30 seconds and the lead.

By the time Kostecki made his final stop, on tires fresher than the cars in front of him, he was fourth but well back from the leader. That was team 18’s Anton De Pasquale, who held a gap over the similar Chevrolet Camaro of Matt Stone Racing’s rising star (and pole qualifier) Zach Bates.

The had been put in the position they were in after great strategy and smart driving from their co-drivers, veteran Lee Holdsworth backing up ‘ADP’ and youngster Aaron Seton pairing with Bates.

But Team 18’s strategy, to short-fill the car at the final stop to preserve track position, backfired. They under-filled the car, De Pasquale were in maximum fuel saving mode, and the race was on.

Then came the race’s only safety car, prompted when Chaz Mostert crashed in exactly the same Forrest’s Elbow wall as his Walkinshaw TWG Toyota teammate Ryan Wood in Thursday Practice. There was a three-lap sprint to decide the winner, Kostecki used his fresher tires to maximum advantage and the charge was on.

He picked off Bates for second, then on the final climb up Mountain Straight the Team 18 Chevy staggered, then slowed and Kostecki swept past to a win for the ages.

Kostecki, who was working with team manager Tom Moore in an engineering role after his long-time race engineer George Commins missed the race due to a mountain bike accident last weekend, could scarcely believe what happened in the final laps.

“We we going so well during the race, like I said, the Mountain always chooses the winner,” said Kostecki,

“Tom gave me all the information I needed. It’s great to win another one with this guy (Hazelwood).

Said his co-driver;

“Between the lowest and the highest in about 40 seconds. We were begging for a safety car. This guy was driving the wheels off it. This one is very, very special for us.”

Second place went to a Ford, with Will Brown and Scott Pye scrambling through the top 10 in the Triple Eight Mustang, the pair using pit strategy and smart driving to overcome a lack of speed compared to come of their opposition.

Third place came the fairytale entry from Matt Stone Racing. Anyone expecting the minnow team to fade during the race would have been impressed by a flawless opening stint, and then two more, by Aaron Seton, and Zach Bates, who qualified on pole position, was on contention to take an unexpected win.

The pair finished third and were delighted – but without a safety car, and with the Team 18 fuelling error, the youngsters and MSR would have taken the win.

Still, third was a great result, particularly when it was backed up by fourth place with the sister entry. Jack Le Brocq and Harri Jones were in or around the top 10 placings all day, and by the time the flag came out was with three seconds of the win.

Fifth was a great result for 2025 winner Matt Payne. After co-driver Will Davison started the race Payne’s opening stint turned into the double when he copped a five-second penalty after tangling with David Reynolds. Then a wheel rolled across the Grove Racing pitbox marker and was retrieved by an unauthorised crew member, the result being a pitlane drive-through penalty.

It was a great fightback and with it, Payne maintains his championship points lead.

The biggest challenges that many teams had to face were around tires and brakes. By the end of the first one-hour stint some cars were already starting to find blistered rear tires and as the temperatures rose – and track temperatures exceeded 100 degrees – some even delaminated.

One of the difficulties was that the Dunlop tire in use for the race for the second time was largely untested in the 2025 race, which was mostly run in cool and rainy conditions.

The brake problems seems to be down to what some team members described as inconsistent quality with the control brake pads, with slight variations between two batches of the Ferodo-supplied brake pads.

“These good old brake batches that we get given can’t last more than 60 laps,” said Grove Racing co-owner Breton Grove told the event’s TV broadcast.

“The problem is now we’ve changed brakes after 70 laps or something and we’ve got 85 laps to go. Let’s see if we can make it home.

“It’s a joke that we’re at this level and the brakes can’t last a race.”

Andre Heimgartner/Bryce Fullwood were the best of the Toyota teams in seventh, their Brad Jones Racing GR Supra not quite having the speed to challenge for the win. James Golding/Richie Stanaway were eighth for the Blanchard Racing Team, ahead of Thomas Randle/Reuben Goodall (Tickford Racing Ford) and Craig Lowndes/Bayley Hall in the wildcard entry Team 18 Chevrolet.

With his fourth place Le Brocq takes the 10th and final place in the Supercars Finals series, with the fight for the title going to the streets of the Gold Coast on 23-25 October.