The 2014 race was the eighteenth running of the Australian 1000 race, which was first held after the organisational split between the Australian Racing Drivers Club and V8 Supercars Australia that saw two "Bathurst 1000" races contested in both 1997 and 1998. The 2014 race was also the 58th race for which the lineage can be traced back to the
1960 Armstrong 500 – held at Phillip Island – and the 55th to be held at Mount Panorama.
Volvo made its first appearance in a major endurance race at Bathurst since the factory supported Volvo Dealer Racing finished second and third in the 1999 Bob Jane T-Marts 500 with a pair of Volvo S40s. Garry Rogers Motorsport ran Volvo S60s under the banner of Volvo Polestar Racing.
In addition to the twenty five regular championship entries, two wildcard entries were accepted for the 2014 race. Of the two, the Dragon Motor Racing entry subsequently withdrew, leaving only the Ford FG Falcon entered by Super Black Racing. The team featured much New Zealand symbology, similar to Team Kiwi Racing, although the only connection was some team personnel, notably drivers Andre Heimgartner and Ant Pedersen who had both previously driven with Team Kiwi Racing.
Mark Winterbottom and Steven Richards were the defending race winners, but were not racing together in 2014 as Winterbottom was paired with Steve Owen at Ford Performance Racing, whilst Richards teamed up with Craig Lowndes at Triple Eight Race Engineering.
Practice
The first free practice session took place on the Thursday morning prior to the race with a duration of fifty minutes. The session was open to both championship drivers and co-drivers, with Chaz Mostert setting the fastest time ahead of James Moffat and Garth Tander. David Wall suffered a tyre failure on Conrod Straight, causing him to make contact with the wall and damaging the front and rear of the car. Cameron Waters hit the wall at the Cutting, damaging the rear of his car. Both cars would miss the second free practice session, which was only for co-drivers.
Four-time Bathurst winner Greg Murphy topped the session in his Holden Racing Team Commodore over the defending Bathurst winner Steven Richards and Brad Jones Racing's Luke Youlden. The third practice session took place mid-afternoon and was littered with red flags, first for Robert Dahlgren and then Tander, who both had accidents at the Dipper. The session was restarted five minutes from the end and the top three cars all broke the practice lap record (2:06.8012, set by Craig Lowndes in 2010) in that time: David Reynolds set a 2:06.3714, Mark Winterbottom a 2:06.4813 and Fabian Coulthard a 2:06.5463.
Ford Performance Racing topped both free practice sessions on Friday, with Steve Owen going fastest in the co-driver only session ahead of Youlden and Alexandre Prémat. After repairing Wall's car on Thursday, Dick Johnson Racing had more work to do after Ashley Walsh crashed the team's other car in an incident similar to that of Waters the day before. In the fifth free practice session, Winterbottom became the first driver to set a lap time under 2:06 with a time of 2:05.9011, ahead of Scott McLaughlin and Jamie Whincup, who both set a time of 2:06.1.
Top 10 Shootout
Only nine cars took part in the top ten shootout after Garth Tander's car was heavily damaged in a crash in practice on Saturday morning. Eleventh-fastest qualifier James Courtney was originally promoted to take part of in the top ten shootout, but was later prevented from running after a protest from Triple Eight Race Engineering.
The Great Race
The race was won by Ford Performance Racing drivers Chaz Mostert and Paul Morris, ahead of Nissan Motorsport's James Moffat and Taz Douglas, and the James Rosenberg Racing pair Nick Percat and Oliver Gavin. 2014 marked the longest running in the race's history, just shy of eight hours, and the first time the race has been won by a combination that started last.
