Payne & Tander Triumph in Turbulent 2025 Bathurst 1000

Matt Payne etched his name into the annals of Australian motorsport history on Sunday, October 12, 2025, by steering the Grove Racing Ford Mustang to a stunning victory in the Repco Bathurst 1000, co-driving with the veteran Garth Tander to secure the team’s first Great Race triumph and Tander’s record-equaling sixth. Starting from 18th on the grid after a subdued qualifying performance, Payne’s composure under relentless pressure, combined with strategic brilliance amid chaotic conditions, propelled the No. 100 entry across the finish line at Mount Panorama ahead of David Reynolds and Lee Holdsworth in the Team 18 Chevrolet by just 0.9588 seconds after 161 grueling laps that unfolded over nearly seven hours. The margin belied the pandemonium that defined the day: a deluge of rain that turned the 6.213-kilometer circuit into a skating rink, no fewer than seven safety car interventions that shredded strategies, a litany of retirements that culled the field from 25 starters to a battered top 10, and a final-stint frenzy where alliances fractured and elbows flew in the dying laps.

The race, delayed by 45 minutes to its latest-ever start time of 11:45 a.m. (AEDT) due to lingering overnight moisture on the track, kicked off under a deceptive veil of clearing skies that masked the meteorological hammer about to fall. Pole-sitter Todd Hazelwood in the No. 38 Dick Johnson Racing Ford Mustang—co-driven by reigning champion Brodie Kostecki—converted his front-row advantage into an early lead through the infamous Hell Corner, fending off a charging Mark Winterbottom in the No. 6 Tickford Ford and a opportunistic Jayden Ojeda aboard the No. 2 Walkinshaw Andretti United Mustang. But the green flag’s optimism evaporated almost instantly. On the formation lap, Bryce Fullwood’s No. 14 Brad Jones Racing Camaro suffered a catastrophic driveshaft failure, stalling the car on the grid and scattering the midfield pack like startled wildlife. Fullwood’s co-driver Brad Vaughan limped the machine to the pits for a full transaxle replacement, only for oil leaks and gearbox woes to force a retirement after just 21 laps, their day over before it truly began.

As the field sorted itself through the Esses and up the Mountain’s vertiginous climb, the greasy remnants of overnight dew claimed another early victim. Tony D’Alberto, sharing the No. 17 Mustang with Will Davison, misjudged Forrest’s Elbow on lap 12, slamming into the concrete wall with a impact described by teams as “massive” over the radio. Debris littered the apex, prompting the first full safety car deployment while marshals scrambled to clear the wreckage. D’Alberto and Davison’s retirement was the first of many, their car too damaged to continue, and the yellow flags lingered as Chaz Mostert’s No. 25 WAU Mustang—co-driven with Fabian Coulthard—began coughing smoke from a faltering engine that had plagued the car since Coulthard’s opening stint. Mostert nursed it to Conrod Straight before the power unit expired entirely, stranding him under the second safety car of the afternoon and handing Coulthard/Mostert their second consecutive Bathurst DNF after gearbox gremlins the previous year. Coulthard had earlier reported crunching shifts from lap 25, a harbinger of the mechanical betrayals to come.

Behind the safety car, the pit lane buzzed with activity as co-drivers swapped in for their primary stints. Ryan Wood took the wheel from Ojeda in the No. 2, Jaxon Evans climbed aboard the No. 12 BJR Camaro from Jack Smith, and Richie Stanaway settled into the No. 62 PremiAir Chevrolet after Nash Morris’s opening run. Payne, taking over from Tander on lap 25, methodically carved through the pack, brushing panels with Craig Lowndes’ Triple Eight wildcard entry on the pit straight in a rare moment of early aggression that saw Tander’s co-driver stint briefly compromised by minor contact at Griffin’s Bend. By the end of the first hour, Broc Feeney had assumed the lead for Triple Eight after a slick short-fill strategy, pulling a 10-second gap over Hazelwood, but the respite was fleeting. Nick Percat and Tim Slade’s No. 10 Supercars Chevrolet succumbed to a dropped cylinder on lap 50, expelling clouds of unburnt fuel and retiring to the garage, their championship hopes dented further in what had already been a lean season.

As the clock ticked toward the second hour’s close, the heavens opened, injecting unpredictability into an already fractious race. Showers swept across the Mountain just past the 100-lap mark, transforming The Cutting and McPhillamy Park into hydroplaning hazards while the field remained on slicks. Cam Waters and Kostecki, now leading after a double-stack pit stop for Triple Eight, engaged in a high-stakes duel that encapsulated the race’s raw edge. Waters, in the No. 6 Tickford Ford, twice made off-track excursions at Hell Corner, once tagging Kostecki’s rear in the process, but retaliated with a daring outside pass at Reid Park. Kostecki countered at The Cutting, the pair trading positions four times in five laps amid radio pleas for clean air. Their skirmish ended under yet another safety car when Morris beached the No. 62 in the gravel at Turn 1 following contact with Cameron McLeod’s No. 3 at the Cutting exit, scattering stones across the circuit and bunching the leaders once more.

The third hour devolved into a procession behind the yellow flags, with Kostecki’s No. 38 plagued by steering vagueness, clutch slippage, and an overheating alternator that forced a battery swap mid-stint. Whincup, now at the wheel of the No. 88, gambled on slicks as the rain intensified, only to pit frantically for wets when the downpour thickened, dropping him briefly behind David Russell’s PremiAir Chevrolet. Mark Winterbottom, meanwhile, spun into the Forrest’s Elbow barriers on cold wets, costing a lap in repairs and underscoring the track’s unforgiving nature. As conditions eased slightly into the fourth hour, Wood assumed command in the No. 2, building a 20-second cushion over Golding before handing back to Ojeda—only for the Kiwi to slide into the wall at The Cutting entry during a late safety car pit stop, damaging the right-side suspension and foreshadowing their eventual demise.

Feeney’s bid for a second Bathurst crown unraveled spectacularly on lap 124 when he washed wide on fresh wets at Forrest’s Elbow, plowing into the tire wall with a thud that echoed through the timing screens. The No. 88 limped back to the pits for repairs, rejoining a lap down but salvaging sixth place through Whincup’s veteran nous in the closing stages. Anton de Pasquale’s No. 18 Team 18 Chevrolet met a similar fate on lap 106, crashing at the Chase and sustaining front-end damage that limited them to 20 laps before a points-focused repair relegated them to 20th. Kostecki’s woes compounded with a gravel excursion that pitched the No. 38 into a spin, followed by a drive-through penalty for contact with Jake Allen at Hell Corner, ultimately forcing their retirement after six laps amid a cascade of electrical failures.

James Courtney’s farewell lap as a full-time Bathurst primary driver turned bittersweet on lap 128 when the No. 7 Ford’s transaxle grenaded under load, stranding him in the pits and ending his 20th start at the Mountain in mechanical ignominy. Jaxon Evans’ No. 12 suffered an unspecified but terminal issue shortly thereafter, joining the growing list of DNFs that included Macauley Jones’ No. 96 BJR Camaro, which shunted at Forrest’s Elbow and classified 16th, two laps adrift. Will Brown’s No. 1 Triple Eight Chevrolet, already penalized for clashing with Allen at the Chase, clattered into the Griffin’s Bend wall on lap 133, shedding rear wing and bonnet debris that necessitated the sixth safety car and a frenzied pit lane scramble.

With 28 laps remaining, the race ignited into its most feverish phase as the safety cars bunched a weary field for one final assault. Golding, now leading after passing Wood at The Cutting, held a precarious advantage fueled by a 10-second strategy deficit that demanded flawless execution. Murray, in the No. 99 Erebus Camaro, surged from fourth on the restart, threading the needle past Reynolds at the Mountain Straight to claim second. Stanaway, charging for redemption in the No. 62, tapped Jones at Forrest’s Elbow over ninth, prompting the seventh and final safety car as Wood—leading at the time—suffered a catastrophic crank sensor failure on Conrod Straight, limping to the pits in limp mode and rejoining 12 laps down in 19th after an 11-lap fix. The New Zealander’s heartbreak was palpable over the team radio, his 13-second lead evaporated in an instant of electronic betrayal.

The lap 147 restart unleashed bedlam. Murray pounced on Golding for the lead at the Mountain top, only for Golding to miss a shift at Hell Corner and yield briefly to Wood before reclaiming ground. Payne, conserving tires in third, shadowed the leaders as fog began to cloak the escarpment, the rain’s patter fading to a drizzle that slickened the apexes without fully drying them. Thomas Randle and Reynolds tangled at the Chase on lap 148, the Tickford Ford dropping to 11th with a five-second penalty for an unsafe release into Jones earlier. Stanaway’s resurgence ended abruptly when he overcooked the entry to The Cutting, slamming into the barriers and scattering carbon fiber across the kink, his co-driver Morris’s earlier gravel excursion now a distant memory in their retirement ledger.

As the clock wound down to 14 laps, the podium protagonists—Murray, Payne, and Golding—were blanketed within 1.3 seconds, their cars twitching through lurid slides on the Mountain’s crown. Payne, the 26-year-old Kiwi in his third Bathurst start, pressed Murray relentlessly, forcing a bobble at the Esses on lap 153 that allowed a dive into Forrest’s Elbow. The pair ran side-by-side to Conrod Straight, Payne’s inside line holding until he clipped the rumble strip at The Chase, dropping two wheels onto the grass and rejoining in third behind Golding’s opportunistic advance. Undeterred, Golding lunged alongside Murray on the Mountain Straight two laps later, diving into The Cutting only for Murray to slam the door, holding the line through sheer willpower.

The decisive blow landed on lap 157 at Griffin’s Bend. Golding, desperate to erase his penalty-laden season, dove inside on Murray, the contact sending the Erebus Camaro into a spin that dropped it to fourth. Stewards issued Golding a five-second time penalty post-race for causing the avoidable clash, a call that would prove pivotal. With four laps to run, Payne reclaimed second from the recovering Golding, the duo trading paint through the Chase and Murrays as Reynolds loomed large in fourth, lapping 1.5 seconds quicker in clean air. Feeney, seven seconds adrift in sixth, mounted a late charge but couldn’t breach the top five. On the final lap, Golding edged ahead of Payne on the pit straight, the PremiAir Chevrolet nosing into the lead through Hell Corner. Payne countered with a textbook line up the Mountain, holding the inside at the Cutting as Reynolds lunged wide at Conrod but couldn’t complete the pass. Golding crossed the stripe 0.6 seconds ahead on the road, but the penalty demoted him to third, handing Payne the checkered flag and Tander his place among the elite with Peter Brock and Mark Skaife.

Reynolds and Holdsworth’s runner-up finish marked Team 18’s best Bathurst result since 2017, a gritty recovery from mid-pack travails. Murray and Jobe Stewart salvaged fourth in the Erebus Camaro, 4.6969 seconds adrift, while Cameron Hill and McLeod rounded out the top five for Matt Stone Racing. Grove’s double delight extended to eighth for Kai Allen and Dale Wood, the No. 26 Ford navigating the chaos unscathed. Aaron Cameron and Zak Best claimed ninth in the Blanchard Racing Team entry, with Lowndes—making his 20th Bathurst start—steering the Triple Eight wildcard to a sentimental 10th alongside Zach Bates.

In the end, the 2025 Bathurst 1000 stood as a testament to the circuit’s brutal poetry: 1,000 kilometers of triumph forged in attrition. Payne’s victory, from 18th to first amid rain-lashed restarts and mechanical sieges, evoked the resilience of past greats like Jim Richards or Larry Perkins. For Tander, it was redemption after a co-driver-only career marred by near-misses. Yet the toll was stark—13 retirements, from Evans’ silent mechanical exit to Coulthard’s gearbox agony and Stanaway’s wall-kissing fury. As the sun dipped behind the Mountain, piercing the fog, the 50,000-strong crowd rose in ovation, knowing they had witnessed not just a race, but a reckoning. The Great Race had claimed its due, and in Payne’s hands, it had found its newest guardian.

Bathurst 1000 2025: Top 10 Finishers and Championship Implications

The 2025 Repco Bathurst 1000 delivered one of its most chaotic editions, with rain, multiple safety car periods, and dramatic late-race incidents reshaping the order. Matt Payne’s victory from 18th on the grid not only marked a breakthrough for Grove Racing but also propelled him into second in the drivers’ standings, securing his spot in the inaugural Supercars Finals series alongside nine others. Below is a detailed table summarizing the top 10 finishers, including their car details, finishing positions relative to the leader (all completed the full 161 laps), and the primary driver’s position and total points in the 2025 Repco Supercars Championship standings after Round 10. Championship points reflect the cumulative tally post-Bathurst, incorporating bonus points for cup winners where applicable (e.g., 25 bonus points for Payne as Enduro Cup winner). Data for drivers outside the overall top 10 in the championship is noted as such, as full granular standings beyond the Finals qualifiers were not immediately detailed in post-race updates.

This outcome underscores the Enduro Cup’s influence on the season’s endgame, with Payne’s win adding crucial points to his Enduro tally while Feeney’s sixth-place salvage limited damage to his Sprint Cup lead. Reynolds’ strong recovery to second boosted Team 18’s momentum heading into the Finals, despite sitting outside the top 10 overall. Golding’s podium, marred by the post-race penalty that dropped him from a potential win, highlights PremiAir’s resurgence but leaves them chasing consistency for future campaigns. Murray’s fourth marked a breakout for Erebus’ young gun, though his championship position remains mid-pack. Hill’s top-five finish edged him closer to Finals contention but fell just short, as noted in post-race analyses. The full Finals field—Feeney, Payne, Brown, Waters, Kostecki, Mostert, De Pasquale, Randle, Wood, and Allen—sets up a high-stakes showdown across the Gold Coast, Sandown, and Adelaide, where eliminations and resets will decide the crown. For drivers outside the top 10, their Bathurst hauls still offer vital momentum, but the playoffs format shifts focus squarely to the qualified elite.