Canberra’s own Zach Bates has claimed a third-place finish at the Bathurst 1000 in his rookie season. Photo: Matt Stone Racing.
Canberra’s Zach Bates has made history at the Bathurst 1000, finishing third in Australia’s biggest race and becoming the first rookie since 2001 to start from pole.
The ACT revhead is in the midst of his first full Supercars season, driving a Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Bendix Racing after making his debut in Ipswich last year.
Despite a year of mixed results, with no finishes higher than 9th in the season’s 29 previous races, the 22-year-old surprised everyone by taking provisional pole in the race’s first qualifying on Friday afternoon.
Bates continued his hot run, backing up his Top 10 Shootout time on Saturday and becoming the first driver to post a sub-2:04 lap around the mountain in the new Gen3 cars.
Bates went on to take pole position for Sunday’s race, beating championship leader Mathew Payne and qualifying king Brodie Kostecki.
During Sunday’s race, Bates and his partner Aaron Seton (son of race legend Glenn) stayed at the pointy end of the field all race, never dropping out of the top 10.
Heading into the last lap, Bates sat in fourth before race leader Anton De Pasquale’s car ran out of fuel and sputtered out, handing Bates a much-deserved podium finish.
Bates said the team had worked through a difficult year but was striving for a strong qualifying result at the year’s most prestigious race.
“It’s been a whirlwind of a week. I can’t believe it,” Bates said.
“Aaron and I have been working super hard to try and get the car nice and speedy. To be able to tick off a pole, let alone a pole here, is pretty cool.
“We’ve been pretty good in qualifying; in the races I’ve still got a lot to learn, but the qualifying speed has been pretty decent all year, getting a few shootouts and things like that.”
Bates said the result will only drive him to go two steps higher on the podium in future.
“The race was insane; it went right down to the wire,” he said.
“I got my first podium, which is amazing, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t gutted that we didn’t get the W.
“At the same time, it was such an awesome race, which was also run by Aaron and the whole MSR crew, so everyone should be super proud.
“I’d like to hope we can build on it and come back and try to do it again.”
Bates will continue his Supercars season next weekend (23-25 October) at the Gold Coast 500.