A botched pitstop ruined New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen’s chances of Bathurst glory today.
The Kiwi, who started the race from pole position, looked set to come home first before stalling his Holden during a pitstop and being unable to restart it with 11 laps to go.
Instead Chaz Mostert pulled off one of the most remarkable wins in the history of the Bathurst 1000 coming from 25th at the start of the race to overtake Jamie Whincup in the final lap.
Whincup was nursing his car over the last few laps, desperately low on fuel but as they crossed the start line for the 160th time it looked like he was going to make it, however, Mostert in his Pepsi Max Ford was chasing hard and overtook him as they headed back down the mountain.
Mostert carried on to win, while incredibly Whincup ran out of fuel just metres from the line.
James Moffat finished second while Nick Percat filled the final spot on the podium.
It was a day of disappointment for the other New Zealand drivers too despite Fabian Coulthard and Scott McLaughlin also leading the race at some point.
Coulthard’s prospects came to an end slightly earlier than van Gisbergen after a puncture, while McLaughlin hit a wall.
Greg Murphy and James Courtney came 13th and were never in contention. Against all expectations, Super Black Racing’s Andre Heimgartner and Ant Pedersen finished 11th in their maiden race.
Van Gisbergen got off to a terrible start from pole in his Tekno Holden, while McLaughlin who was directly behind him, darted up the inside and got the lead.
As the race settled down McLaughlin, Mark Winterbottom and van Gisbergen built up a healthy lead over the rest of the field while Whincup, who started the race from 23rd because of a crash in qualifying, zoomed through the pack and by the 10th lap he was up to seventh.
Disaster struck Coulthard’s co-driver Luke Youlden in the 27th lap. He was unable to make the turn at the Chase after puncturing and beached the car, the safety car came out and it looked like Coulthard’s dreadful luck at Bathurst would continue.
A safety car came out for the second time in the 44th lap because a kangaroo was on the track and deterioration of the surface in turn two and after two more cars crashed at the same corner the race was red flagged on lap 62, suspending racing.
After an hour’s gap, racing began again, but only briefly as Todd Kelly and Whincup had an altercation and the current V8 Supercars champion lost a lap to the rest of the field.
At the halfway point McLaughlin was in the lead, Nick Percat second and van Gisbergen in third, while Ant Pedersen in the Super Black Racing Ford was 17th.
On lap 119 McLaughlin went out of contention after he hit the wall on a corner up the mountain. He limped the car back to the pits and sat in it for a few moments, too gutted to move.
Van Gisbergen took the lead from Craig Lowndes 39 laps from home, while Coulthard was third.
Twenty-nine laps from the chequered flag Lee Holdsworth ended up on his roof at turn two, where else? And it resulted in cars darting into the pits, but they were all too far out to make it to the end without taking on more fuel. Winterbottom went in early and hoped a safety car would come out to help him make it to the end.
He got his wish on lap 149 when Tim Blanchard hit a wall. Van Gisbergen went into the pits where his race ended before he stormed off to the team bus.
