The 2016 event was the 59th running of the Bathurst 1000, and the 56th time it had been held at Mount Panorama. It was the 20th 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. It was the 18th time the race had been held as part of the Supercars Championship and the fourth time it formed part of the Enduro Cup. The defending winners of the race were Craig Lowndes and Steven Richards.
The event commemorated ten years since the death of nine-time race winner Peter Brock - who died in a crash at the Targa West rally one month prior to the 2006 race - and the introduction of the Peter Brock Trophy. Brock's brother Phil presented the Trophy to the race winners, having made the first presentation of the Trophy in 2006. Several of Brock's old race cars were on display at the event, with a selection completing parade laps prior to the race on Sunday morning. The cars in the parade were driven by Phil Brock and the previous winners of the Peter Brock Trophy. The event also paid tribute to Mark Porter, who passed away following a crash in a support race during the 2006 event.
Shane van Gisbergen entered the event as the championship leader, seven points clear of his Triple Eight Race Engineering teammate Jamie Whincup. Lowndes, the third Triple Eight driver, was third in the points standings, 157 behind Van Gisbergen. In the Teams' Championship, Triple Eight Race Engineering hold a 1273-point lead over the Holden Racing Team. In the Enduro Cup standings, Holden Racing Team drivers Garth Tander and Warren Luff lead the Triple Eight pairing of Van Gisbergen and Alexandre Prémat by 24 points.
Entries
As well as the regular 26 championship entries, a single wildcard entry was received for the race. The Harvey Norman Supergirls entry that contested the 2015 race returned for 2016, fielding an unchanged line-up of Simona de Silvestro and Renee Gracie. The entry switched from competing with a Prodrive Racing Australia-prepared Ford FG X Falcon to a Nissan Altima L33 built by Nissan Motorsport.
Practice
Three one-hour practice sessions were held on the Thursday prior to the race. Practice 1 and Practice 3 were open to both regular drivers and co-drivers, while Practice 2 was for co-drivers only. The first session was contested mainly by regular drivers, with Whincup setting the fastest lap time of 2:05.9500. He had earlier caused a red flag after spinning at the final corner and getting stuck in the sand trap. Coulthard was second fastest, more than half a second behind, ahead of Slade. The car of Pye sustained damage when Pye spun at McPhillamy Park and went backwards into the tyre wall. Despite the damage, Pye was able to return to the pit lane. Courtney brushed the inside wall at Turn 13 early in the session but did not incur any significant damage.
Rick Kelly and Mostert completed minimal laps, with both of their cars suffering from a vibration in the driveline. Practice 2 was topped by Whincup's co-driver Dumbrell, who set a time of 2:06.8947. Walsh, Premat, Canto and Macauley Jones completed the top five. The session was red flagged with seven minutes remaining when Golding ran wide at Turn 6 and made heavy contact with the outside wall. The car suffered significant damage to the front and rear suspension on the left-hand side as well as to the transaxle. Moffat did not take part in Practice 3 as Garry Rogers Motorsport were unable to repair the damage from the crash in time. Like Practice 1, the session was contested mainly by regular drivers, with only six co-drivers completing laps during the session. Whincup set a lap time of 2:05.2946 to be fastest ahead of Coulthard and Mostert.
Two more one-hour sessions were held on Friday. Practice 4 was open only to co-drivers while all drivers were allowed to run in Practice 5. The car of Moffat and Golding returned to the circuit in Practice 4 after being repaired overnight; Golding finished the session in 14th place. Le Brocq set a time of 2:05.9547 to be fastest, with Youlden, Dumbrell, Canto and Premat completing the top five. Ingall clipped the wall at Turn 13, similar to Courtney in Practice 1, but continued without damage and finished the session in 22nd place. While co-drivers were allowed to run in Practice 5, the session was contested exclusively by regular drivers. The final part of the session was used as a simulation for qualifying session to be held later in the day.
Whincup returned his car to the top of the order with a time of 2:05.1494, the fastest lap of the weekend to that point. Winterbottom was second fastest ahead of Mostert, McLaughlin and Van Gisbergen. Halfway through the session, Percat's car got loose going through the Esses, causing him to lock a brake going into the Dipper. He hit the inside wall which sent the car into a spin before it came to rest on the exit of the Dipper. Percat escaped without significant damage and was able to take part in the remainder in the session.
The sixth and final one-hour practice session was held on Saturday morning. Teams focused on the race set-up of their cars for the majority of the session and completed practice pit stops. Towards the end of the session, a number of the drivers who had qualified for the Top 10 Shootout took the opportunity to do a simulation of their Shootout lap; Mostert set a lap time of 2:05.3352 to be fastest. His co-driver Owen had almost hit the wall earlier in the session when he lost control of the rear of the car going into the Dipper. Winterbottom was second fastest ahead of McLaughlin.
Qualifying
Qualifying for Race 20 consisted of two parts: a 40-minute qualifying session and a Top 10 Shootout. The qualifying session was held on Friday afternoon and was contested by regular championship drivers. The fastest ten drivers in the qualifying session progressed to the Top 10 Shootout, held on Saturday afternoon. The start of the qualifying session was delayed by ten minutes following a crash in the preceding Supercars Dunlop Series session which left fluid on the circuit. Whincup continued to show strong form, setting an early benchmark of 2:05.5157. His teammate Van Gisbergen set the second fastest time, with Mostert, McLaughlin and Winterbottom completing the top five, before the session was red flagged when Davies went off at the Chase and became stuck in the sand trap. As per the qualifying regulations, Davies had his fastest lap time removed and was not permitted to take part in the rest of the session. The session resumed with 25 minutes remaining and Mostert went to the top of the order with a 2:05.2067. The session was red flagged again with 20 minutes remaining, with de Silvestro getting stuck in the sand trap at the Chase. Like Davies, she had her fastest time removed and was excluded from the rest of the session.
Jamie Whincup took pole position for the race, having been fastest in both qualifying and the Top 10 Shootout. After the resumption of the session, Mostert remained at the top of the order until Whincup set a time of 2:05.0481 with two minutes remaining, which would prove to be the fastest time of the session. McLaughlin started his final flying lap just before the end of the session and moved up to second, one tenth of a second slower than Whincup. Slade was third fastest despite encountering an electrical problem which left him without key information—such as anti-roll bar positions and brake bias—for much of the session. Mostert, Coulthard, Van Gisbergen, Winterbottom, Pye, Tander and Caruso completed the top ten and progressed through to the Top 10 Shootout along with Whincup, McLaughlin and Slade. Defending race winner Lowndes qualified in 21st position, having struggled with his car for most of practice.
Top 10 Shootout
The top ten shootout saw each of the ten drivers complete one flying lap each, in reverse order of their qualifying positions. Having qualified in tenth position, Caruso was the first driver to complete a lap, setting a time of 2:05.9167. Both Tander and Pye were unable to beat Caruso's time, with Tander going 0.0019 seconds faster than Pye. Winterbottom ran wide at the Chase on his lap, setting the slowest time of 2:08.2615. Van Gisbergen went faster than Tander but was still over three tenths of a second slower than Caruso. Caruso's time was finally beaten when Coulthard set a time of 2:05.6726; this was immediately eclipsed by Mostert's time, who went fastest despite running wide on the exit of the Chase. Slade slotted in between Coulthard and Caruso before McLaughlin went to the top, 0.0352 seconds faster than Mostert. Whincup was the final driver to complete a lap and set a time of 2:05.4263 to take pole position by less than a tenth of a second over McLaughlin. It was the second time Whincup had scored pole position at Bathurst, though he downplayed its importance, saying: "It’s all good stuff, but it doesn’t mean anything, tomorrow’s the big day. There’s no points for qualifying on pole."
The Great Race - and Controversy
Whincup was running second behind McLaughlin in the closing stages of the Bathurst 1000, when he attempted to pass McLaughlin coming into the chase, but the two touched sending the McLaughlin across the grass on the exit of the corner. Attempting to redress the situation, Whincup slowed down to allow McLaughlin to rejoin the track ahead. However as he slowed down, Tander, who was running directly behind the pair in third place, tried to take advantage and pass both drivers, but as he pulled out to pass Whincup, McLaughlin rejoined the track and ran into the side of the HRT car, knocking both drivers out of contention as Whincup carried on. However, whilst the safety car was out to clean up the incident, Whincup received a 15 second penalty which would be applied after the race. Once the safety car pulled in, Whincup attempted to pull out a 15 second gap over Davison, who was focused on defending the net lead of the race over van Gisbergen. But this plan failed when Todd Kelly spun into the gravel on lap 158 and brought out the safety car, however the race continue to run. Whincup took the win on the road but dropped down to 11th once the penalty was applied, giving the race win to Davison. Motorsport fans are irate with Whincup after the Holden driver caused a huge crash near the thrilling end of the Bathurst 1000.
“I just went out there and raced hard. I feel sorry for the result, I’m just going up to the Volvo and HRT guys. You don’t want to see any wrecked cars. I’ll just go and apologies for the result. I feel the move was on, I was in there. He squeezed me narrow, we had contact. I was happy to redress, but the two cars weren’t there to redress.
“We tried hard like we always do. We’ll fight back in a couple of weeks time.”
Holden Racing Team owner Ryan Walkinshaw is furious at a “greedy” Whincup who says he robbed Holden Racing Team of a potential Bathurst 1000 fairytale ending. Walkinshaw slammed the Red Bull Racing Australia for the chaotic crash which Tander out of the race and left McLaughlan to limp home in 12th. “It’s gutting for the boys,” Walkinshaw said. “If it hadn’t been for Jamie (Whincup) making that move on Scotty (McLaughlin) we probably win that race. It’s a difficult thing to take. A win for that car would’ve been an absolute fairytale and it was a real shame it got spoiled unnecessarily by the actions of Jamie (Whincup).” “Scotty (Scott McLaughlin) came and apologised. He’s a good bloke and didn’t mean to do what he did. I can see that,” “As I’ve said, I don’t think any of it would have happened if Jamie hadn’t slowed done so much. We’re just gutted because it would have been the perfect way to end not only our relationship with the Holden Racing Team, winning Bathurst, but also our last race with Garth Tander as well.” “It’s a shame because you don’t want to see races won or lost like that. When you’ve got three drivers all fighting for the win at a place like Mount Panorama, with 10 laps to go, we want clean racing. That’s what we were giving out and what you expect in return.”
Australian motor racing legend John Bowe believes Whincup has been “robbed” of a Bathurst 1000 title as the controversy following Sunday’s race continues to rage. The Whincup camp has received support from two-time Bathurst winner Bowe, who issued a statement on Facebook backing the appeal, calling Whincup an “extremely fair driver”.
Triple Eight Protest
The appeal against the penalty along with a $10,000 fee has been submitted by Red Bull Racing Australia Team Manager Mark Dutton to the CAMS Stewards of the meeting. The crux of Triple Eight’s appeal centres on an argument that levying the time penalty is inconsistent with the system of punishment that has been explained to teams this year, which includes three levels of offence and the ability to redress an error by handing back the position taken in the passing move. Triple Eight owner Roland Dane told supercars.com. “We have protested the 15 seconds because the penalty they gave is completely inconsistent with what we have been given as the way the rules will be enforced this year,” Dane said. “It is questionable whether Jamie (Whincup) was guilty of any crime when you actually look at the incident with McLaughlin. The stewards have confirmed that the 15 seconds penalty is nothing to do with the aftermath. That wasn’t Jamie’s fault. It was only to do with the incident with McLaughlin.”
Supercars National Court of Appeal
On 18 October, nine days after the race, the Supercars National Court of Appeal's dismissed Whincup's appeal ensuring provisional winner Holden's Will Davison and co-driver Jonathon Webb's grip on the Peter Brock Trophy tightened. However, Whincup's Red Bull Racing Australia had a week to decide whether to take their case to the FIA International Court of Appeal. Triple Eight Race Engineering entry Red Bull Racing Australia appealed the severity of the time penalty but it took just 50 minutes for the three-man Supercars Court of Appeal panel to dismiss it. And so, the end result was that the race was won by Tekno Autosports' Will Davison and Jonathon Webb. Whincup had taken the chequered flag first, but a post-race 15-second time penalty relegated him to eleventh position. Shane van Gisbergen and Alexandre Prémat finished second for Triple Eight, with the Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport entry of Nick Percat and Cameron McConville completing the podium. |
