MOTORSPORT is a game full of ‘what ifs’ and that certainly rings true for André Heimgartner’s month of October.

Heimgartner was provisionally into Supercars’ finals until the very last lap of the regular season, when Broc Feeney passed him for sixth place with two corners to go in the Bathurst 1000.

That saw Kai Allen go through instead, with Heimgartner dropping to three points on the wrong side of the bubble.

That arguably makes the Kiwi’s successful Gold Coast weekend all the more bittersweet.

There, Heimgartner accumulated the fifth-most round points thanks to finishes of seventh and third in the pair of 250km races – which theoretically would have been enough to put him through to the Sandown semis.

But it’s not to be.

The #8 R&J Batteries Camaro gets airborne. Pic: Mark Walker

Heimgartner had not spoken much of his finals heartache until Sunday post-race on the Gold Coast.

“It was courtesy of Broc, but he was just doing his race,” the Brad Jones Racing spearhead said when asked if he’d replayed that last lap of Bathurst much in his head or if he would do anything differently.

“Look, I can sit there and blame the person that passed you with two corners to go, but I basically just f***ed up and aquaplaned and then he went down the racing line.

“When we went off a few laps earlier and made contact and bent my steering and lost a spot, that also could have done it.

“I mean, f***, you could call through so many times throughout the year on things that could have gone better. It is what it is.”

Third on Sunday was nevertheless a welcome result for the 30-year-old, who had been staring down the barrel of his first podium-less season since 2018.

Pic: Mark Walker

“It’s been quite a frustrating year,” he said.

“I think my average qualifying is 18th or something, so pretty horrendous and I just haven’t been able to find the groove. But we’ve kept working away at it and not given up.”

Like many of his peers, Heimgartner had some thoughts to share on the wild airtime associated with navigating the Surfers Paradise chicanes this year.

“You can’t lapse your concentration and every time you go into the back chicane you’re like ‘okay, here we go’ and you have got to really just smash it,” he said.

“You almost have a crash every few laps. So it’s pretty awesome.

“Not sure if it’s completely safe but it’s a good spectacle.”