ANOTHER BATHURST Thriller delivered a victory to Ford, DJR Team Penske, Scott McLaughlin and Alex Premat. Here’s the initial Race Torque vibe on the podium finshers, and more.

WORDS: Richard Craill IMAGES: Mark Walker

IN THE LEAD-UP to this year’s Great Race you could be forgiven in your thinking if car 17 winning was inevitable.

Here was the best team currently operating, with the fastest car, a driver operating at a level higher than any other and the backing of every resource required.

And yet Bathurst is never that simple.

Despite the complete backing of the team and his co-driver, there was always the Premat equation as in, would he be up to the task if it came down to an arm wrestle between he and, say, Garth Tander or Craig Lowndes.

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And then there’s every other variable on the Mountain. Friendly fire. Fuel economy. Weather. Rivals. Strategy. And all the other crazy stuff that occurs on your every day, run of the mill Mountain classic.

Car 17 dealt with all of that. They saved fuel when required and blazed when needed. A measured, controlled race saw them have enough fuel in the tank to battle when they had to at the end and even ‘Frenchy’, as McLaughlin so affectionately calls Alex Premat, performed well.

Only a torched right-front after that early-race lock up was a blot on the copybook but in the end it didn’t really cost them much at all.

This was a race managed perfectly by the team, even when they made the call to make Car 12 a sacrificial lamb and back the pack up behind the Safety Car to give McLaughlin – and, ironically, Whincup – clean air to protect against van Gisbergen who had a shorter stop to make.

Was it against the rules? Of course and they were penalised so.

But it was one of several moves that helped the team win the race and you can’t tell me that every other team in the pit lane wouldn’t have done the same thing had they the chance to win The Great Race.

Again, though, that didn’t matter either because Bathurst threw up its usual array of late Safety Car stoppages; the last thanks to Andre Heimgartner who fenced it at the Elbow.

SINGLE LAPS have been the forte’ of Scott McLaughlin’s career and today was no different.

The only change that it was to decide the biggest race of all, not merely qualify on pole for it.

After two of what must surely have been the slowest Safety Car laps in history – and well played Race Control, too – he had to deal with a one-lap dash and Shane van Gisbergen locked under his Mustang’s sizable rear wing, all on cold used tyres and on a circuit awash with fluid and dirt and detritus from a day at the races.

And he nailed it. Absolutely nailed it. That lap was perfection, far more pressure than his Shootout lap in the cold of Saturday or even his ‘three’ two years ago. He’ll have more laps like that in his life but to produce that to win Bathurst will surely be the most significant thing that he achieves in his career.

TRIPLE EIGHT will be disappointed in second and fourth but in the end they did what all bloody good teams do and fired when it counted, on the big stage.

Whincup was inch perfect. Lowndes was Craig Lowndes at Bathurst and each gave car 888 a fighting chance to win it.

Ironically, the call to pit and top off fuel in the penultimate Safety Car was the wrong one because had they not, that late Safety Car would have put them in the lead in what was clearly a track position race.

But these are the kind of things you can’t second guess at Mount Panorama and you can only back the call you make as the race is unfolding, not for what might happen… because what does usually happen no one can predict anyway.

In 97 Garth Tander was, well, Garth Tander and Shane was his usual feisty, speedy self. They made the call to pit under that late Safety Car and gamble on a splash-and-go at the end, an opposite strategy to the sister car. It was a good call but even the interference efforts from the Penske Ford would have been unlikely to change the result.

SVG chucked everything at it on the final lap, two wheels off the road at McPhillamy everything, but even that wasn’t going to stop McLaughlin.

But it was a fine performance from the best team of the decade who are now back on song with a ZB Commodore working how they want it and the four best drivers on the grid.

WALKINSHAW Andretti United and the Bathurst Podium go hand-in-hand and James Courtney and Jack Perkins managed to MacGyver themselves into a trip to the top of the pit building by seemingly using a rubber band and paper clip.

After an horror year it, coupled with eighth from the sister car, was a stunning result and Courtney’s drive under pressure from Jamie Whincup – who had a full tank of juice – was a reminder that he still has something to offer and perhaps that’s why he’s going back to Penrith for Supercars’ new Sydney team.

And then there’s Jack Perkins. The Cowangie Kid’s Kid on the Bathurst podium. Through all he’s been through in his racing career a Bathurst podium had eluded the Junior Perkins but few would begrudge him making the trek up Tower 1, through the media centre and out to the Holden faithful.

Through it he did it with a crushing flu virus but with the belief in his teammate and in a team that even through all the tribulations still has a big game to offer when it comes to races that require that kind of game.

So like Johnson Jnr and Richards Jnr there’s now a Perkins Jnr on the podium record sheet at Bathurst and that is bloody fantastic.

WHAT ELSE? More than 201,000 in the house was a great result, the Sunday crowd looked and felt bigger than 2018 even if Thursday and Friday were quitter.

The race ran for six hours and 27 minutes. The field got to half-race distance 15 minutes faster than they did last year but the rash of Yellow late in the day slowed proceedings. Still, the later race start had little effect, save to push the finish beyond six PM and right into the midst of the TV ratings happy hour that, thanks to the rabid discussion on social media, should see some decent TV ratings emerge when they’re released at about 11am tomorrow.

IN THE next few days we’ll break down more about the 2019 Bathurst 1000 with the Power Rankings, post-race podcasts and analysis.

But right now, one and a half hours after the race, we sit here still shaking our heads at what occurred today.

For all the predictions of no passing, of parity dramas, of co-drivers letting people down or of no one turning up what Mount Panorama delivered was once again special; it delivered a Bathurst 1000 and that, every year, is about the most special thing that can possibly happen.

It was another Great Race.