Title contenders, dark horses and rising stars: Best Bathurst driver combos to watch

At the biggest race of the year, Supercars drivers will have to rely on more than just their talents and their wits.

How a contender’s co-driver fits into the picture can make or break their Bathurst 1000 — and boost or degrade a championship challenge.

It’s absolutely critical to get it right. Which combination is best placed to leave its mark on Mount Panorama?

Watch every lap of the 2024 Repco Supercars Bathurst 1000 LIVE & ad-break free during racing. New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited time offer.

THE TITLE CONTENDERS

87. Will Brown and Scott Pye (Triple Eight Race Engineering)

Sandown result: Started from pole, finished 1st

Previous Bathurst best: 2nd (2017 and 2018, Pye) and 8th (2023, Brown)

Championship leader Will Brown will roll out of the Bathurst pit lane brimming with confidence.

He has a 189-point title lead. He’s fresh from winning the Sandown 500 with new co-driver Scott Pye. He saw off teammate Broc Feeney to lead a Triple Eight one-two at the endurance curtain-raiser.

The Brown-Pye combination is unquestionably the favourite heading into the biggest race of the year.

But his relatively comfortable position at the top of the sport could ironically be the one weakness in his game this weekend.

While Bathurst is the race every driver wants to win — and neither Brown nor Pye has yet conquered the mountain — the championship looms as the bigger goal.

Brown can’t win the title this weekend, but a bad result could cost him his lead or at least throw the outcome back into significant doubt.

Will that force him to race conservatively if push comes to shove, his eyes on the greater prize?

This Sandown-winning combination would back itself to rise above the fray that might pose such a question, but you’d be brave to predict a straightforward race on Sunday that keeps car 87 totally out of danger.

88. Broc Feeney and Jamie Whincup (Triple Eight Race Engineering)

Sandown result: Started 5th, finished 2nd

Previous Bathurst best: 1st (2006, 2007, 2008 and 2012, Whincup) and 5th (2022, Feeney)

Broc Feeney so nearly helped team boss and co-driver Jamie Whincup add a fifth Bathurst 1000 victory to his CV last year before disaster struck, with transmission problems putting the 88 Camaro out of the race just as eventual winners Shane van Gisbergen and Richie Stanaway came into view.

The heartbreaking late technical fault not only cost Feeney what would have been a first Bathurst podium and what could have been his maiden victory, but it ended his championship hopes on the spot.

It set up a redemption arc that’ll last for as long as it takes for the Triple Eight star to conquer the mountain.

Could it be this year?

Not unlike last season, Feeney needs victory this weekend to have any hope of winning the championship. While no fair-minded driver would ever wish for it, he also needs some bad luck to befall teammate Brown to help him along the way.

His hopes of claiming first place in the Great Race are boosted by having the immensely decorated Whincup as his co-driver. Whincup knows how to win in Mount Panorama, and the two have worked seamlessly since first joining forces in 2022, including by taking out top spot at last year’s Sandown 500.

After being pipped to first place in Sandown by the sister car last month, this combination won’t be left searching for motivation to raise the game this weekend and is sure to play a pivotal role to the outcome.

25. Chaz Mostert and Lee Holdsworth (Triple Eight Race Engineering)

Sandown result: Started 6th, finished 7th

Previous Bathurst best: 1st (2021, both drivers; 2014, Mostert)

The grid’s only proven Bathurst-winning combination is looking for its second joint victory, and car 25 has the form to back up Chaz Mostert and Lee Holdsworth’s aspirations.

Following on from fourth in Bathurst last season, Mostert made himself a perennial threat in the 2024 season-opening Bathurst 500, finishing third and second to end the round as the second-highest scorer of the weekend. The sister Walkinshaw Andretti United car was similarly fast, albeit without the Sunday results.

Mostert also arrives at this critical championship juncture in fine form. He’s taken five podium finishes, including two victories, from his last seven starts, and before the Sandown 500 he was rapidly closing down Brown’s advantage.

But Sandown halted that momentum. A Holdsworth spin and a badly timed pit stop dumped the WAU Mustang out of podium contention, and while seventh was decent damage limitation, it cost Mostert a bucketload of points to Brown on the title table.

But the speed was clearly there, and WAU was far from the only team to execute imperfectly in Melbourne.

Banish those demons this weekend and the title challenge could yet be saved.

THE DISRUPTERS

6. Cam Waters and James Moffat (Tickford Racing)

Sandown result: Started 2nd, finished 6th

Previous Bathurst best: 2nd (2021, both drivers; 2014, Moffat; and 2020, Waters)

Cam Waters and Tickford are in frontrunning form late in the season, but neither is in championship contention after a painfully slow start to the year.

All that means is that they’re out for pride and ready to be a thorn in the side of the title contenders.

The Cam Waters-James Moffat combination is well established in its fourth year. Both drivers have a pair of runner-up finishes in Bathurst — one together and one apiece separately — along with a third in 2022.

A crash last year prematurely ended their race, but there’s little doubt they can combine again to challenge at the head of the field this weekend.

19. Matt Payne and Garth Tander (Grove Racing)

Sandown result: Started 9th, finished 4th

Previous Bathurst best: 1st (2000, 2009, 2011, 2020 and 2022, Tander) and 6th (2022, Payne)

Matt Payne has been a sleeper contender for podiums and victories all year, the supercool Kiwi coming of age in his second main-game campaign allied with a Grove team growing in confidence.

This year his ascent will be turbocharged by linking up with veteran Garth Tander as co-driver.

Tander, the 2007 Supercars champion, adds immense Bathurst experience to the mix as a five-time Bathurst winner. Two of those have come in the last four years, when he formed a formidable partnership with Shane van Gisbergen at Triple Eight.

It’s the sort of combination that’s impossible to ignore on the sport’s biggest stage.

1. Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood (Erebus Motorsport)

Sandown result: Started fourth, did not finish (electrics)

Previous Bathurst best: 2nd (2023, Kostecki) and 8th (2021, Hazelwood)

The reigning world champion and his title-winning team haven’t been at their best this year, but recently there have been glimpses of the sort of speed that took Brodie Kostecki to a dominant pole position at last year’s Great Race.

It’s raised hopes that Kostecki could yet end his complicated Erebus career on a high, having just one podium to his name for the season so far.

And it’s easy to forget just how good the 26-year-old was here last year, when he put almost half a second on his shootout rivals to take pole. Finishing second in the race was equal parts down to Triple Eight’s better race pace and his own measured discretion, knowing that he had much to lose and little to gain with his title lead already well established.

Co-driver Todd Hazelwood brings with him the advantage of having driven this car at Bathurst earlier this year while substituting for the absent Kostecki, a stint during which he proved a safe pair of hands.

They’ll start the race as outsiders and underdogs, but a strong showing this weekend would be a timely reminder that the reigning champion can still be a force to be reckoned with ahead of his Dick Johnson Racing switch next year.

MORE BATHURST 1000

SKAIFE’S TOP FIVE: The iconic Bathurst acts that define Australia’s Great Race

GRAND FINAL OF OUR SPORT: Supercars unveils dramatic ‘finals’ system to shake up 2025 title

‘HOLD YOUR BREATH’: Inside Bathurst’s craziest win… and why history could repeat

26. Richie Stanaway and Dale Wood (Grove Racing)

Sandown result: Started fourth, did not finish (electrics)

Previous Bathurst best: 2nd (2023, Kostecki) and 8th (2021, Hazelwood)

On paper the Richie Stanaway-Dale Wood combination doesn’t feature among the favourites, but one should never discount a reigning Bathurst winner.

Stanaway completed a fairytale Supercars comeback last year partnering Shane van Gisbergen, banishing years of bad Supercars memories by finishing third in Sandown and then winning the Great Race.

It was no fluke, either.

Stanaway goes well at Bathurst. His wildcard entry with Greg Murphy in 2022 was impressively composed after almost three years out of the sport, and fourth place at this year’s season-opening Bathurst 500 was similarly strong, particularly relative to the rest of his season, which has generally underwhelmed alongside the standout Payne.

Another strong result could be crucial to the Kiwi, who’s already been axed just one year into his Grove revival. Only one seat remains on next year’s grid — Tim Slade’s PremiAir Camaro — and though he’s already been tipped to take the drive, now would be the time to make himself irresistible.

THE YOUNG GUNS

2. Ryan Wood and Fabian Coulthard (Triple Eight Race Engineering)

Sandown result: Started 10th, finished 15th

Previous Bathurst best: 2nd (2022, Coulthard)

Ryan Wood’s Bathurst debut started with a bang but ended with a whimper.

The Kiwi young gun was eighth and 11th fastest in qualifying at the Bathurst 500, immensely impressive for his first ever Supercars round, just his second visit to the famous circuit in any category and with only three years of car racing under his belt.

First-lap tangles in both races left him with only seven laps to show for the entire weekend.

But the 20-year-old has taken the positives from the experience. Not only was he fast, but in teammate Mostert’s hands the Walkinshaw Andretti Camaro was a double podium getter that weekend, forming the foundation of a championship challenge.

To ease his transition onto the biggest stage in Australian domestic racing, Wood is partnered with the extremely experienced Fabian Coulthard, a veteran of 20 Bathurst starts and a two-time podium-getter in the Great Race.

The speed is clearly there. If this combination can keep mistakes to a minimum, WAU will surely end up with two cars in the fight in the final stages.

888. Craig Lowndes and Cooper Murray (Tickford Racing)

Sandown result: Started 18th, finished fifth

Previous Bathurst best: 1st (1996, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2015 and 2018, Lowndes)

Cooper Murray has already got the nod to replace Kostecki at Erebus next season. With the reigning teams champion having a history of picking winners from the junior ranks — Kostecki and Brown chief among them — great things are expected of the 23-year-old.

His two wildcard entries this year in Darwin were quietly impressive, and with lead driver Craig Lowndes the 888 car finished a commendable fifth at Sandown last time out.

There could be no greater master to his apprentice than Lowndes. He’s already successfully guided young guns Declan Fraser and Zane Goddard through the endurance season over the past two campaigns, and as a seven-time Bathurst winner and three-time Supercars champion, he can never be counted out.

He’ll raise Murray’s ceiling at the sport’s most difficult race, making this pairing essential viewing this weekend.

17. Will Davison and Kai Allen (Dick Johnson Racing)

Sandown result: Started 15th, finished 24th

Previous Bathurst best: 1st (2009 and 2016, Davison) and 20th (2023, Allen)

Kai Allen, just 19 years old, will make his full-time main-game debut next year with Grove, having impressed enough with his 2023 Super2 title and his currently table-topping championship defence to earn the promotion.

He’d been a highly rated DJR protégé before being poached by Grove, a situation facilitated only after Stapylton signed reigning champion Kostecki to replace the outbound Anton de Pasquale next year.

Having made a low-key Bathurst debut last year as a wildcard alongside international Simona de Silvestro, this season will be a bigger stage for him to demonstrate his mettle.

Partnered with two-time Great Race winner Davison in one of DJR’s full-time entries, he’s set up for success.