When Garth Tander announced his retirement from racing last November, he guaranteed he would bow out of the sport as the undefeated winner of the Bathurst 1000.

His victory with full-time Matt Payne for Grove Racing last year was one for the ages and, as his sixth at Mount Panorama, it assured his place in history.

He’s equal on the Bathurst honour role with Larry Perkins and Mark Skaife, and only three drivers — Peter Brock (nine), Jim Richards (seven) and Craig Lowndes (seven) — have stood on the top step more times in their careers.

Watch every race of the 2026 Repco Supercars Championship LIVE & ad-break free during racing on Kayo Sports.

Of his six wins across 28 years, three have been in his own car and another three as a co-driver — twice with Shane van Gisbergen and once with Payne.

In the Bathurst modern era, he’s the driver’s driver. Few could profess to offer a better perspective on what it takes to win the Great Race.

“Very different skills and very different mindsets,” he tells Fox Sports of the difference between winning as a full-timer and a co-driver.

“The primary driver — it’s your baby, so you just go and get it. I feel like you’ve got a lot more of a licence to taste take a risk.

“Whereas when you’re the co-driver, and particularly in the modern era, when you’re thinking about other people’s finals campaigns now and also championship campaigns, I felt that I didn’t have as much of a licence to take risks.

“You need to be really solid, really dependable, and give your primary driver — I certainly found this when I was co-driving with Shane van Gisbergen and Matt Payne — as much confidence as you could by your performance.

“Being as fast as you could, being as analytical as you could, being as disciplined as you could all the way through race week so they had a whole huge amount of confidence in the co-driver, in me, so that when they got in the car, they were really focused on just doing their job and doing their job well and not worrying about whether their co-driver was fast enough or up to the job.”

PIT TALK PODCAST: Ahead of this weekend’s Bathurst 1000, we catch up with reigning winner Garth Tander and reigning champion and Enduro Cup leader Chaz Mostert. | Listen to Pit Talk here | Watch Pit Talk on YouTube >

The likelihood of a co-driver being able to deliver on that brief could depend on where they are in their careers.

Verstappen unfazed by the rain | 01:00

There are two types of co-drivers in Supercars: young guns hoping to make a name for themselves, and wise old heads who have been there, done that and ready to lend that experience to a team looking to make that final lunge for Bathurst glory.

“For me, having that experience, particularly at Bathurst, was that I knew at certain stages I could have made the car better for me, but it would have detracted from the speed of the primary driver,” Tander explains.

“I had the ability or the experience of knowing how to drive around the problem that I needed to make better.

“There are some things where you go, ‘Hey, look, I just need the car to be able to do XYZ, therefore I’m more comfortable in the car’.

“But as far as getting the ultimate speed out of the car for me as a co-driver, that wasn’t a primary thing; it was about making the main driver comfortable and making sure that I was close enough to them lap-time-wise that from a strategic point of view in the race, it didn’t matter which driver they had in the car.

“If I was fast in the race car, then you had so much more strategic flexibility in the race.

“Certainly I know with Shane, we used that a couple of times, where I ended up doing much more of the race than most co-drivers, because I was pretty close to him on lap speed, so then we could keep him fresh for the run to the chequered flag, which is the most important 60 laps of the day.”

MORE BATHURST 1000

MOSTERT MAGIC: Disaster sparked this iconic Bathurst image. There’s a ‘naive’ myth about what happens next

BROCK REMEMBERED: Tragedy that rocked Aussie sport 20 years on… as stars lift lid on legend’s most unforgettable act

PRIVELEGED: Payne on what it means to return to Bathurst as winner… and what it’ll take to do it again

A young gun, on the other hand, could offer greater theoretical potential but also the risk of them being unable to strike that balance.

“If you’re a young co-driver, because it is a job audition, you are putting yourself in the shop window with all the teams up and down pit lane, not just the team that you’re driving for,” he says.

“You want to be fast, but you don’t want to make a mistake, because if you make a mistake, it’s almost like the black line comes through your name and you’re on the back burner for a couple of years until you try and fight your way back in.

“It’s probably more brutal for the younger co-drivers, which is tough, absolutely tough. It’s hard on them, absolutely hard on them.”

‘A real shame’ – George gutted after DNF | 01:42

THE KEY CONTENDERS

Speaking to the Fox Sports Pit Talk podcast, Tander analysed some of the key driver pairings to watch in this year’s edition of Australia’s Great Race.

Chaz Mostert and Fabian Coulthard

Car: No. 1 Walkinshaw TWG Racing Toyota Supra

Seasons together: 2 (2005–26)

Entries: 37 (Mostert: 14; Coulthard: 23)

Wins: 2 (Mostert: 2014, 2021)

2026 championship: 8th, 1713 points

“Well, firstly on the Toyota aspect, it became pretty obvious pretty early in the year that they were going to be more of contenders than a lot of people were expecting given their performance — pole positions and race wins in the first three or four race weekends of the year.

“Everyone was like, ‘Oh, wow, that’s way ahead of schedule’. Now they’ve gone on and won the 500km race at Tailem Bend, that will give certainly Toyota and the Toyota teams some confidence heading to Bathurst, for sure.

“Fabs as a co-driver is really experienced — been there, done that. It was great to see him get his first 500km race win at Tailem Bend — and we saw from Chaz last year that he timed his run to the championship so spectacularly well. He came from not a lull in form, but he wasn’t so spectacular in the mid part of the year last year and certainly got the run all the way to Adelaide really, really strong.

“He’s potentially starting that run now, and we know how good he is at Bathurst. We’ve seen that before. He’s won the race twice before. There’s no better form than recent form, and they’re the most recent race winners.”

Chaz Mostert and Fabian Coulthard lead the Enduro Cup. (Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images

Matt Payne and Will Davison

Car: No. 19 Grove Racing Ford Mustang

Seasons together: 1 (2026)

Entries: 28 (Payne: 5; Davison: 23)

Wins: 3 (Payne: 2026; Davison: 2009, 2016)

2026 championship: 1st, 2275 points

“Certainly two-time Bathurst winners don’t grow on trees. There’s not a lot of them, so when I’d retired and when Will became available at the end of last year, it was a great signing.

“He’s done the right thing. He’s been racing all year in the GT Championship. He’s done plenty of race miles, and that I think is important.

“I certainly found when I stopped racing full-time it was important for me to keep myself busy, because it is pretty heartbreaking when you finish your full-time career. You go, ‘What do I do now?’ Well, you keep yourself busy. You keep yourself busy by racing cars, and that’s what Will’s done.

“He was very, very strong at Tailem Bend. He got taken out in the first corner and fought back through the field really well in really tricky conditions. A huge amount of experience at Bathurst with Will Davison.

“Obviously Matt showed last year his ability in the last 30 laps in those really tricky conditions — and realistically the last 10 laps, when it became quite a dogfight between those four cars for the race win — just how calm he was under pressure, and that’s certainly what you need at Mount Panorama.”

Will Davison and Matt Payne (Photo: Supplied)Source: Facebook

Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood

Car: No. 17 Dick Johnson Racing Ford Mustang

Seasons together: 3 (2024–26)

Entries: 18 (Kostecki: 8; Hazelwood: 10)

Wins: 1 (Kostecki and Hazelwood: 2024)

2026 championship: 4th, 1971 points

“If you can create a level of stability between your primary driver and co-driver, like Brodie and Todd have, then that’s absolutely an advantage.

“Todd has turned himself from what was a bit of a Supercars journeyman in his full-time career into the model co-driver. He is as pliable as Play-Doh. He just jumps in, does the job, does all the stuff that Brodie doesn’t like doing, and Todd does it with a smile on his face — and Todd’s fast.

“He had a tough Tailem Bend. It sounds like they didn’t get the car right for those wet conditions and it was quite tricky to drive, but he’s got the runs on the board, Todd Hazelwood.

“As a combination, these two, from a driving perspective, are certainly the strongest because of that enduring relationship. It’s three years that they’ve been together. It’s not a long time, but it certainly makes a difference when you’ve got that historical relationship there.

“Brodie knows that Todd’s got Todd’s back. Todd knows that Brodie’s got his back, and that makes a massive difference.”

Triple Eight

“It’s hard to get a read on Triple Eight this year and the Red Bull cars, because I certainly felt like at Queensland Raceway, the event before Tailem Bend, that they’d found their mojo and they were back where they deserve to be speed-wise, where they historically have been for so long.

“Broc was super strong, Will Brown was fast after they found that air restrictor thing. You thought, ‘Oh yep, they’re back’.

“Tailem Bend they were there but sort of just speed-wise. Then they got involved with all sorts of hijinks and chaos in what was a tricky race certainly. But you qualify deeper in the field, you expose yourself to getting caught up in those sorts of things.

“I expected to go to Tailem Bend and see at least one Red Bull car on the front row for the 500km race, and that didn’t happen.

“It’s hard to get a read on them going into Bathurst.

Todd Hazelwood and Brodie Kostecki. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images

Broc Feeney and Nick Percat

Car: No. 88 Triple Eight Race Engineering Ford Mustang

Seasons together: 1 (2026)

Entries: 22 (Feeney: 7; Percat: 15)

Wins: 1 (Percat: 2011)

2026 championship: 2nd, 2155 points

“As awesome a Jamie is — and his record is unmatched as far as seven-time champion and four-time Bathurst winner — he wasn’t doing a lot of other driving through the year, so I think actually bringing Nick Percat in makes the Feeney car a little bit stronger, because Nick’s just finished full-time competing, still involved and not the MD of the business.

“Jamie for 362 days of the year his job is to run Triple Eight Race Engineering, then he jumps into the endurance races, whereas Nick’s sole focus this year has been getting a result in Broc Feeney’s race car. I think that makes that car a little bit stronger with a little bit more of a competitive edge going to Bathurst.

Broc Feeney. (Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images

Will Brown and Scott Pye

Car: No. 888 Triple Eight Race Engineering Ford Mustang

Seasons together: 3 (2024–26)

Entries: 24 (Brown: 9; Pye: 15)

Wins: 0

2026 championship: 7th, 1870 points

“Will Brown and Scott Pye — who knows? We all thought the qualifying dramas were fixed after Queensland Raceway, and it sort of went back again at Tailem Bend, then Scott had to start in the pack. He got involved in some dramas, got penalties, damage.

“You said we don’t know what we’re going to get from Red Bull at the moment, and I don’t know yet either, so we’ll wait and see.”

Will Brown. (Picture: Shae Beplate)Source: News Corp Australia

Cam Waters and Mark Winterbottom

Car: No. 6 Tickford Racing Ford Mustang

Seasons together: 2 (2025–26)

Entries: 39 (Waters: 15; Winterbottom: 24)

Wins: 1 (Winterbottom: 2013)

2026 championship: 5th, 1962 points

“Frosty has a huge amount of experience at Bathurst, and Cam — a label that he’ll be starting to hate having is the perennial bridesmaid at Bathurst. He’s had a lot of podiums without a race win. I have no doubt that there’s a lot of motivation there for Cam to have success.

“Frosty got caught out from the conditions last year, so he’ll be looking for a bit of redemption as far as a co-driver as well. I think that’s another combination that we need to keep an eye on.”

Who else is in the mix?

“Anton de Pasquale and Lee Holdsworth, the Erebus cars — we saw last year Cooper Murray was in the mix at the end of the race.

“There will be someone that we have not spoken about here that will be in the mix at some stage on Sunday Bathurst Day.

“That’s the beauty of Bathurst — it always has this ability to throw some unique storylines at you.”