Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood won the Bathurst 1000 on 11 October 2026, driving the #17 Shell V-Power Racing / Dick Johnson Racing Ford Mustang.
The crew completed the 161 laps in 5:54:04.749. They didn’t hit the front until the final lap, 22 corners before the chequered flag.
Mount Panorama in New South Wales doesn’t let a comfortable lead hold up the way it might on a flatter circuit. The narrow track, an elevation change of about 174 metres and the fast run down Conrod Straight leave almost no room for error over a distance of just over a thousand kilometres. The result here comes down to more than raw speed: pit stops, fuel strategy and how the Safety Car falls all play their part. In some years the winning margin has stretched out to half an hour; this time it came down to less than a second.
It’s the season’s marquee event on the Supercars Championship calendar. Grandstands along Mount Panorama fill from Friday, and the race goes to air nationwide. In Australia it’s long been known as The Great Race. Any slip-up here costs more than at any other round on the calendar. Teams value Bathurst separately from the championship points. A single win here means just as much for a team’s prestige as a strong finish in the overall standings.
Kostecki and Hazelwood made a strong start, qualifying second and running in the lead group for almost the whole race. On lap 125, a pit stop nearly undid their race. A front brake change ran more than 25 seconds over and dropped the crew from first to fifth. Kostecki made his final stop on lap 150, leaving him an 11-lap dash to the flag. On laps 152 and 153 he set back-to-back lap records for Gen3 cars, clawing back the time lost in the pits.
After Kostecki’s stumble, the lead passed to Anton De Pasquale and Lee Holdsworth in the #18 Chevrolet Camaro. The crew made their final refuelling stop on lap 139 and emerged 15.5 seconds clear of Zach Bates. The gap looked comfortable. With ten laps to go, though, the team took a gamble and asked De Pasquale to save fuel rather than hold the pace. Punters would call that kind of logic volatility. A high-volatility pokie can sit without paying out for ages; then one spin suddenly lands a big combination, and there’s no picking it in advance. The fuel-saving plan was meant to get De Pasquale’s car home first; instead, it decided the race against him. Supercars liveries and team colours have long since moved beyond the track, turning up in merchandise, video games and, increasingly, online pokies, including whole ranges of themed motorsport slot games. Supercars liveries and team colours have long since moved beyond the track, turning up in merchandise, video games and, increasingly, online pokies, including whole ranges of themed motorsport slot games. Releases in this genre are tracked by Wild Tokyo Casino, whose figures show that these games have long overtaken roulette and live dealer tables in popularity.
On lap 156, Chaz Mostert’s crash at Forrest’s Elbow brought out the race’s only Safety Car. That left the drivers with a three-lap sprint instead of a steady run to the flag. Kostecki made the most of the restart. On lap 159 he passed Bates at Murray’s Corner to move into second, within sight of the leader.
The decisive moment came on the final lap, lap 161. De Pasquale ran out of fuel on Mountain Straight and the Camaro slowed abruptly. Kostecki moved into the lead with 22 corners left to run. De Pasquale never made it to the chequered flag.
Will Brown and Scott Pye crossed the line second, 1.184 seconds back. Zach Bates and Aaron Seton took third, 1.927 seconds off the pace. It’s the second Bathurst 1000 win together for Kostecki and Hazelwood, and the fifth in the race’s history for Dick Johnson Racing. The Queensland team has long ranked among the most successful at Mount Panorama. As it turned out, even a lengthy pit stop on lap 125 doesn’t rule a crew out of the fight, not when there’s pace in reserve for a late charge.
Three episodes in a row decided the outcome, not a steady pace across the distance: the botched pit stop on lap 125, the leader’s risky fuel-saving gamble and Kostecki’s pass in the closing metres. It was that combination, not the fastest lap of the race, that the #17 Ford Mustang carried home.
