poll looking at the biggest rivalries of the modern era that began in 1997.<\/a><\/p>\nAmbrose versus Murphy narrowly defeated the Mark Skaife versus Russell Ingall feud by just a handful of the total 3000 votes cast.<\/p>\n
Scott McLaughlin versus Shane van Gisbergen, Mark Skaife versus Ambrose and Jamie Whincup versus Mark Winterbottom completed the top five.<\/p>\n
The two most popular rivalries won a combined 60 percent of the vote.<\/p>\n
They peaked at the height of the championship in the early to mid-2000s and featured standout on-track flashpoints.<\/p>\n
For Ambrose and Murphy that was a clash and subsequent confrontation at The Cutting in the closing stages of the 2005 Bathurst 1000.<\/p>\n
Their rivalry was fiery but brief as Ambrose only raced in the championship for five seasons before departing for the United States.<\/p>\n
Ambrose won the championship in 2003 and \u201904 while Murphy took the Bathurst 1000 honours on both occasions alongside Rick Kelly.<\/p>\n
Their 2005 Bathurst beef occurred almost 12 months after a memorable confrontation in a press conference at the Gold Coast Indy event.<\/p>\n
Ambrose had been incensed by Murphy\u2019s teammate Rick Kelly driving right up behind him in the Saturday race despite being a lap down after a penalty.<\/p>\n
The Ford star lamented that drivers were \u201cgetting in my way\u201d while he was fighting for the title, to which Murphy tersely countered: \u201cWe\u2019re not just going to pull over for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an encounter that lives on via YouTube, below, and sums up the intensity of the animosity between the pair at the time.<\/p>\n
The duo mused on their rivalry during a promotion for Repco ahead of last year\u2019s Bathurst 1000 that marked the 20 year anniversary of the 2005 race.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was purely born because of competition and the want to win and the want to be the best,\u201d said Murphy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know Marcos was just the same as me in that respect. We\u2019re different personalities and so we came across, we reacted, we did things differently.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the desire was the same. The want was the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both see their rivalry as a product of an era in which the Ford versus Holden rivalry \u2013 and the category in general \u2013 was at its biggest.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll sports need heroes and villains,\u201d said Ambrose.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I was probably both. To some, I was a hero, to some I was certainly a villain.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rivalry we had back in the day, I think people look back at Supercars and that period from sort of 2000 to 2006-7-ish, it was really the height of the rivalries in the sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot on the line at the time, the crowds were massive and Ford and Holden were really going at it, there was a lot of money being spent to try to win on race day.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look back at your career and you\u2019re just proud that you actually were part of that scene.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/t.cfjump.com\/92797\/a\/250635\")
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marcos Ambrose and Greg Murphy pictured in 2025 at the scene of their famous clash. Image: Supplied That\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,29729,36945,806,805,803,804,12357,85],"class_list":["post-651118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-greg-murphy","tag-marcos-ambrose","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-slot1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Ambrose](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Ambrose-Murphy-Cutting.jpg\")