Kostecki & Hazelwood fends off Feeney to win fastest ever Bathurst 1000 for maiden title 2024 in Sydney

BRODIE Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood won the fastest Repco Bathurst 1000 in history, completing a remarkable 12 months for Erebus Motorsport.

The #1 Chiko Chevrolet dominated the race, leading 157 laps and becoming the first entry to win the race in under six hours.

Broc Feeney and Jamie Whincup came up just over a second shy of victory after an intense final stint, where the Erebus and Triple Eight pilots battled flat-out through the final stint.

Their duel was set up by the sole Safety Car period of the race, triggered by a crash for Matt Payne with 30 laps to go.

After dominating the first half of the race, the #1 Erebus Chevy entered the second half with a 16-second margin over the #88 Triple Eight car, with a similar distance back to the #87 Triple Eight Camaro in third.

They maintained the margins through the next round of pitstops on laps 86-87, with the primary/co-driver battle swinging for the next stint, with Hazelwood going toe-to-toe with Feeney.

Hazelwood held his own, managing the margin throughout his stint to hand the car back to Kostecki on lap 115 with a 10-second gap over the #88 Camaro.

However, the #1 car developed understeer through the next stint. Feeney, smelling blood in the water, made the most of a front roll-bar tweak to start hacking into Kostecki’s lead.

Kostecki saw his lead gradually eroded by a superb stint from Broc Feeney, aided by some backmarker traffic as much as the inspired 88 car, capitalising on a minor balance change at the front of the car.

However, the race finally exploded into drama with the deployment of the race's first safety car 131 laps into the race.

Matt Payne crashed into the concrete on top of the mountain, setting up a sprint race to conclude the day's racing in the most dramatic of fashions.

With the cars backed up, Kostecki's gap was the smallest it had been since the opening laps, with 27 flat-out laps to go.

Both drivers exchanged fastest laps in a blistering assault on the Mount Panorama circuit as the great race went right down to the wire.

Neither driver gave an inch and were millimetre perfect lap after lap.

But Kostecki was good enough to hold off Feeney, who could not have done any more to claim the win.

It was the second Bathurst 1000 win for the Erebus Motorsport team, which conquered the mountain in 2017.

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