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For the first time in history, the Top 10 Shootout for the Bathurst 1000 has been cancelled.
A torrential downfall hit Mount Panorama at 3pm and drenched the iconic track, causing rivers of water to flow across the course.
The single-lap qualifying Shootout, which decides the Top 10 places on the grid for Sunday’s Great Race, has been a fixture since 1978, in which Peter Brock became the first man to claim pole position under the new format.
BATHURST 1000 LIVE UPDATES: All the latest from Sunday’s Great Race
But the session, scheduled for 5.05pm AEDT, was canned after race officials toured the track amid the ongoing downpour and saw water sheeting across the track.
The rivers of water caused a Porsche Carrera Cup and a Super2 race to be cancelled after a shocking Toyota 86s crash.
A Motorsport Australia statement said: “Race Control has advised that the Supercars Top 10 Shootout has been cancelled due to extreme weather, leaving the track in an unsafe condition for competition.”
Supercars CEO Shane Howard told a press conference: “Obviously, extraordinary conditions, the amount of water that was dumped on the circuit at the time. It was a lot of channelling, a lot of watercourses being channelled down onto the race track itself.”
“We tried to give it as much time as we could to see if it would dissipate.”
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Race Director Mark Taylor said making the final call was: “Fairly tough, but best efforts were made to get it going. We were proactively trying to reschedule it, but mother nature has beat us on this one. What people don’t understand is the water feeds in from the paddocks.”
“We thought we were going to achieve it until the second front came through… we can’t beat mother nature.”
Howard added that organisers and local council would work into the evening to divert water away from the track, but confirmed that the race would begin as schedulled on Sunday.
Watch every Practice, Qualifying & Race of the 2022 Repco Supercars Championship Live & Ad-Break Free During Racing on Kayo. New to Kayo? Start your free trial now >
‘I would’ve been happy to go out there’ | 00:54
Asked if the organisers considered postponing the Shootout until Sunday morning, Howard replied: “Obviously we look at all the options open to us, but it’s very difficult to be able to redirect that Top 10 Shootout and the time taken to do that – it’s a time issue for tomorrow.
“The cars run a different setup in a Shootout and the race… we don’t have the ability to manage that in the time tomorrow.”
In the Shootout, the 10 fastest drivers from Friday’s qualifying session take one lap each around Mount Panorama – in reverse order, slowest to quickest – to decide the front of the grid for Sunday’s Great Race.
The full grid will now be set based on qualifying times on Friday (see below), with Cam Waters (co-driver James Moffat) of Tickford Racing to start on pole for the second time in his career.
Waters has finished second in the last two editions of the Great Race.
What now for Bathurst? | 02:22
Lee Holdsworth (with Matt Payne) will start second in a Ford Mustang front row lockout, with the former Bathurst 1000 winner attempting to claim a second victory on the mountain.
Reigning Bathurst winner Chaz Mostert (with Fabian Coulthard) will start third.
“Some people out there are getting pretty cheap river views,” Penrite’s Lee Holdsworth joked on Fox Sports, adding he was worried about the ‘pretty hairy’ conditions on track.
James Golding, who was unlucky to miss out on the Shootout after qualifying 13th on Friday, told foxsports.com.au in the drenching rain: “If there was ever a time I reckon you need floaties in your life, it’s now.”
Young driver flips on his side! | 01:29
TOP 10 QUALIFYING RESULTS (Times from Friday)
1. Cameron Waters (Tickford Racing) 2:23.6168
2. Lee Holdsworth (Grove Racing) +0.2128s
3. Chaz Mostert (Walkinshaw Andretti United) +0.2913s
4. Shane van Gisbergen (Triple Eight Race Engineering) +0.4497s*
5. Richie Stanaway (Erebus Motorsport) +0.7359s
6. Will Davison (Dick Johnson Racing) +0.8055s
7. Nick Percat (Walkinshaw Andretti United) +0.9466s
8. James Courtney (Tickford Racing) +1.0287s
9. Brodie Kostecki (Erebus Motorsport) +1.1729s
10. Will Brown (Erebus Motorsport) +1.3836s
*Shane van Gisbergen will start seventh after a three-place grid penalty from a qualifying crash.
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RACE CENTRE: LIVE TIMES AND FULL SESSION RESULTS
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Bathurst Practice 5 – Highlights | 01:26
FULL SCHEDULE (ALL TIMES AEDT)
SATURDAY
10.20am – 11.20am: Practice 5 (co-drivers)
1pm – 2pm: Supercars Practice 6 (all drivers)
5.05pm: Top-10 Shootout
SUNDAY
8am – 8.20am: Supercars warm-up
8.40am – 9am: Drivers’ Parade
11.15am: Race start (161 laps)
LIVE BLOG
Follow the action in our live blog below. If you can’t see the blog, click here.
PRACTICE SIX REPORT
The co-drivers-only practice session on Saturday morning took less than 10 minutes to deliver a crash in the wet conditions – and there two more red flags followed in another hectic session.
But it was a rare relatively straightforward session in the afternoon as the rain eased, though it ended in yet another red flag.
And it was reigning Bathurst 1000 champion Chaz Mostert who made a statement of intent ahead of the Shootout, finishing first with a sizzling 2:05.51s ahead of reigning Supercars champion and series leader Shane van Gisbergen by 0.103s.
“Probably the happiest I’ve been all weekend,” Mostert said, describing himself as having “a little bit of frustration” with the car set-up earlier in the week.
Bathurst Practice 6 – Highlights | 01:10
Van Gisbergen, who has enjoyed a rollercoaster weekend so far – and copped a three-place grid penalty – said he was happy despite “still struggling a bit with the brakes.”
While van Gisbergen was happy with his effort, Broc Feeney in the other Triple Eight entry struggled for pace again, managing just 16th.
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David Reynolds ran wide at The Chase early, before Jordan Boys – co-driver for birthday boy Macauley Jones in the BJR entry – hit the wall then got beached in the dirt in the final couple of minutes, seeing a red flag end the session. The car had been damaged on Friday when van Gisbergen hit Jones in the dying minutes of qualifying, forcing BJR to repair the car until almost 2am AEDT overnight.
The Jack LeBrocq (Matt Stone Racing) entry failed to emerge for the session after co-driver Aaron Seton’s brutal crash in Saturday morning’s practice. Tim Slade also missed the session to complete repairs on an air jack issue.
Wet and Wild scenes in Practice Four! | 01:38
PRACTICE FIVE: SATURDAY CHAOS BEGINS
Tickford Racing’s Kurt Kostecki needed to use the safety road on Murray’s Corner inside the opening five minutes, and his nightmare session continued as he found the wall at Turn 2 soon afterwards on his way up the Mountain. Racing with brother Jake Kostecki, the pair are hoping to improve on their 13th-place finish in 2021.
Four-time Bathurst 1000 winner Jamie Whincup had gone top of the timesheets after the session resumed with a 2:27.266s only to slide into the wall at Turn 2 (Griffins Bend).
He was able to drive on after the car bounced out from the barriers but was unable to return to the track during the session, despite Whincup himself helping to repair the car.
It follows the shock decision for Whincup, now team principal at Red Bull Ampol Racing, to qualify instead of full-time driver Broc Feeney. Whincup managed just 14th (MORE BELOW).
The third – and worst – major incident of the session saw Matt Stone Racing’s Aaron Seton (co-driving for Jack le Brocq) slam into the wall on the top of the Mountain, earning another red flag.
Bathurst veteran Michael Caruso, co-driving for Mark Winterbottom for Team 18, also locked up at The Chase and beached himself in the sodden dirt, another red flag ending the session early.
Dale Wood finished fastest with a 2:26.222s (co-driving for Andre Heimgartner, who missed out on the top 10 shootout by one hundredth of a second). Fabian Coulthard was second, just 0.065s behind. Coulthard is co-driving for reigning Bathurst 1000 winner Chaz Mostert in the WAU entry.
Youngster Jordan Boys was an impressive third, rewarding the hard work of BJR’s mechanics to repair the car of Macauley Jones until the early hours of the morning after a crash with van Gisbergen.
There was another impressive young gun in the form of debutant Declan Fraser in fourth, the rookie partnering with veteran Craig Lowndes in the Supercheap Auto/Triple Eight wildcard.
The moment that cost SVG 3 positions! | 00:47
FRIDAY RE-WIND
Friday saw the rain arrive and cause chaos among the field. Cameron Waters – aptly named, perhaps – rode out the storm to qualify for provisional pole.
Meanwhile, reigning Supercars champion and runaway series leader Shane van Gisbergen copped a three place grid penalty for crashing into Macauley Jones in the final seconds of qualifying, the latest setback in a series of blows to his campaign to climb the most famous mountain in Australian sport.
He wasn’t the only star to be hit with a penalty following Friday’s drama. Jake Kostecki’s own stuttering weekend got worse on Friday night when it was revealed he had earned a $10,000 fine from stewards for speeding in Practice Four under red flag conditions.
The session was red flagged for a third time on Friday when Will Brown crashed, but Kostecki still clocked 220km/h and even overtook Chaz Mostert down Conrod Straight. Half of the fine is suspended until December 31 2023.
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Qualifying Highlights – Bathurst | 01:35
VAN GISBERGEN SLAMMED
Reigning Supercars champion and runaway series leader Shane van Gisbergen earned a three-place grid penalty for crashing into Macauley Jones on his final timed lap.
There was no room for van Gisbergen to overtake at Turn 13, the hard shunt sending Jones into the wall and requiring plenty of repairs before Saturday’s action.
Brad Jones Racing worked until 1.30am on the damaged car, but successfully completed the repairs in full.
Team owner Brad Jones said: “Here you can win the race from last place … it’s just disappointing.
“Even in the dry, you can’t get two cars through that part of the track. So, I think Shane, I’m a little unsure what he was thinking. Clearly, he was committed and he was trying to pass.
“It was just maybe a bit of rush of blood from his side, I’m not sure. Look, the penalty is the penalty, it has done so much damage to the car, but we will sort it out and get it going again for tomorrow.
“The stewards said that he (van Gisbergen) was apologetic about it, it’s just unfortunate.”
Van Gisbergen took to social media to defend his actions.
“Bizarre ending to quali making contact with the 96 car,” he wrote.
“From my end I saw him make a big mistake at T1 and go wide so knew his lap was ruined.
“At Skyline he braked super early and out of the line so I thought he was letting me past.
“Once I committed over Skyline that was it.”
Rain causes CHAOS at Mount Panorama | 01:07
WHINCUP: ‘I DIDN’T PULL RANK’
Four-time Bathurst 1000 winner Jamie Whincup has defended his team’s decision to have him take to the track in qualifying – despite him being co-driver to his full-time replacement at Red Bull Ampol Racing, teen Broc Feeney.
Whincup was the only co-driver on track, but managed to qualify a disappointing 14th.
The legend, who is now the team principal, said it wasn’t his decision to drive instead of Feeney.
“It completely wasn’t my decision, it was the engineers’ decision,” Whincup said.
“They said ‘Mate, you’re in for qualifying’. So, I do what they say and put my suit on and in I went.
“Broc was comfortable with that, for sure. We try to get the best result for the team.
“The last thing I want is people thinking I called rank and said ‘I’m in for qualifying’. That certainly wasn’t the case.
“I’m here as a co-driver, I’m here to support Broc and the team and the decision from ‘Dutto’ (team manager Mark Dutton) and the engineers was for me to qualify. I put my helmet on and got in the car.”
Feeney said he wasn’t upset at the move. “I struggled quite a bit out there myself at the start of P4, but I’m still building up my confidence in a Supercar at this track in the wet,” Feeney said.
“It’s a good thing for me – I was happy to sit back and was well and truly happy for him to qualify today.”
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