‘This one hurts’: Bathurst losers mourn horror fuel mistake
Updated . First published at
As their car ran out of fuel with the finishing line within reach, Team 18 rued their cruel twist of fate, although they’d been dreading it for at least five laps.
Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood were gifted a dramatic victory in the Bathurst 1000 after long-time leader Anton De Pasquale ran out of fuel on the final lap.
Anton De Pasquale’s first Bathurst 1000 victory slipped through his hands. Robert Cianflone
De Pasquale emerged from his final pitstop with a healthy lead of about 10 seconds, but his Team 18 mechanics didn’t put enough fuel in the car, and he immediately had to start saving to make sure he got to the chequered flag.
A safety car with five laps to go bunched the field, but also looked as though it might have helped De Pasquale get home safely.
De Pasquale led the restart with three laps to go, and he started the final tour with a two-second buffer over a late-charging Kostecki.
But his Chevrolet Camaro coughed up Mountain Straight as the tank ran dry and eventual winner Kostecki drove straight past.
“This one hurts,” a team statement read about the heartbreaking loss.
“After all the hard work and effort to put us in the position of leading on the final lap of the Bathurst 1000, only to not deliver the result with the finish so close, it’s hard to find the words.
“To every member of our team: thank you. For the long nights, the sacrifices, the care and the belief you put into this.
“To Anton and Lee, thank you for giving it everything behind the wheel and we’re sorry we couldn’t deliver the finish you both deserved.
“We wanted so much to bring this one home for you all.
“The result is heartbreaking, but we are so proud of the people who brought us this close. We’ll look after each other tonight, and face what comes next together.”
Team 18 boss Adrian Burgess had tried to maintain a calm demeanour on the broadcast when questioned about the fuel situation, offering a vague response about the situation.
Jubilation for Kostecki. Getty Images
But inside the garage, he revealed later that the team knew immediately they were “f---ed”.
“There’s no point glossing over it,” Burgess said after the race.
“We dropped the ball at the last moment. You don’t get any closer to having it in the bank than we had it in the bank, but we didn’t.
“We were f---ed already. We knew we were. We were trying to manage it when [the safety car] came,” he continued.
“Obviously, we thought, ‘great, here we go, this is going to help’, but we realised it probably wasn’t going to help enough. But then you’re one foot in, one foot out.
“Do you come down the pit lane and put fuel in, or do you hope the error is not as big as the error that you think you’ve identified and that you’ve got enough to get home?”
As Team 18 rued their catastrophic error, next-door neighbour Dick Johnson Racing’s garage erupted in jubilant celebration.
To make matters worse for De Pasquale, he wasn’t even able to make it around to take the chequered flag, grinding to a halt at the chase.
“I don’t know how to put it in words, but obviously, very disappointed,” a shell-shocked De Pasquale said.
“We had a really good day … the chequered flag was six (kilometres) away.
Brodie Kostecki crosses the finish line in his Ford Mustang to win the Bathurst 1000. Getty Images
“So, really disappointing. Our car was amazing at the back end of the race where we wanted it. Everything went our way … until it didn’t.
"By the time worked it out, we were done. Obviously, if that safety car went for another couple laps, I would have been fine, but once I knew how much fuel short we were, I knew we were cooked."
It was a record-breaking day out in Bathurst, as the largely uninterrupted race was the quickest in the history of the event, finishing in five hours and 54 minutes.
It’s only the second time that the 161 lap race finished before the six-hour mark and Triple Eight’s Will Brown/Scott Pye joined the victorious DJR duo on the podium, with Matt Stone Racing’s Zach Bates/Aaron Seton finishing third.
Kostecki and Hazelwood led for a chunk of the second half of the race, before a slow pit stop looked to have taken them out of contention.
But after fighting back into the podium spots, they were handed victory on the final lap.
It’s the second time Kostecki and Hazelwood have won the Bathurst 1000 – the first came in 2024.
“The guys did an incredible job the whole day,” Kostecki said on the broadcast.
“We executed so well up until that second-to-last pit stop with the brake change, but like I’ve always said, the mountain always chooses the winner … I can’t believe we’ve won Bathurst in the No.17.”
The No.17 is arguably the most iconic number on the Supercars grid, forever associated with Dick Johnson.
"I went between the lowest, the highest, to the extreme highest, all in about 40 seconds," Hazelwood said.
"This one is special to both of us … it's bloody awesome."
After 157 laps in a largely uneventful race, Walkinshaw’s Chaz Mostert crashed into the wall in the dying moments to bring out the safety car and set up the quick dash to the finish with three laps to go.
It was also a day to forget for champion Matt Payne who was looking to defend his Bathurst crown. He was hit with two penalties, the first a five-second penalty for an early overtake on David Reynolds.
The two tangled coming down from Forrest’s Elbow and the race stewards deemed Payne forced Reynolds off the track, landing the Penrite driver an extra five seconds in his next pit stop.
Anton De Pasquale grinds to a halt at the Chase. Fox Sports
Then his team was slapped with a drive-through penalty for a pit stop infringement that saw a Penrite team member cross over the pit box yellow line without a mandatory fire suit to collect a rolling tyre.
Payne recovered to finish fifth behind fourth place Jack Le Brocq, rounding out a fantastic day for minnow team MSR with both cars in the top five.
