{"id":920623,"date":"2026-10-08T12:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T12:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/920623\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T12:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T12:40:12","slug":"nathan-herne-reacts-to-first-supercars-laps-six-years-in-the-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/920623\/","title":{"rendered":"Nathan Herne reacts to first Supercars laps six years in the making"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Herne\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNathan Herne and James Moffat’s first day in the GRM wildcard at Bathurst was all according to plan. Image: InSyde Media<\/p>\n

Herne and co-driver James Moffat ended the first of two practice sessions on Thursday afternoon in 15th position, while Herne placed 20th in the co-driver-only Practice 2, having run as high as sixth.<\/p>\n

The Lismore native is contesting his first Supercars event after being refused a superlicence exemption to contest the 2020 event with the team.<\/p>\n

Herne is adamant that day one at the track was a success considering the team\u2019s extended period out of the series.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s cool to tick off the first laps in a Supercar,\u201d Herne told Speedcafe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there were a few things we definitely left on the table that probably didn\u2019t show what we actually had on the first day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really happy with our pace given that we just ran the opposite to everyone else. On time sheets it doesn\u2019t look all that flattering, to be honest.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall I\u2019m actually really happy with the day. The team worked out well, we didn\u2019t have any mechanical failures all day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a fair bit of a plan for the rest of the weekend, and we got through all the painful stuff like bedding brakes and doing all those processes and procedures today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having met expectations for the most part, a couple of minor mistakes during a race run saw Herne settle further down the order.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did a little bit of a race around at the end there, which was good,\u201d Herne added.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we made a change beforehand, we probably didn\u2019t go the right way and I sort of just wheeled the thing, trying to keep it on the black stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it\u2019s early, we\u2019re a wildcard, and we\u2019ve only come in for our first round, but to be honest, we exceeded expectations.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it was always going to be a bit tougher of a day and then we made a few errors, which to be honest is not a bad thing, I think it\u2019s good to do it on the Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe car\u2019s still in one piece, we didn\u2019t go off the track, and it hasn\u2019t got any dirt on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Nathan Herne watches on in Practice 1 at Bathurst. Image: Richard Gresham<\/p>\n

While the round is his Supercars debut, Herne\u2019s experience and success at Mount Panorama in Trans Am machinery has come in handy for his preparation \u2013 except for one key factor.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing I didn\u2019t give enough credit to before I came here was to sit on the opposite side of the car,\u201d Herne said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my first ever time actually racing a right-hand drive car this weekend, so that\u2019s going to be an interesting thing for sure.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust to get laps is the goal for me, and it was the goal for today, and we got a few, probably not as many as I\u2019d have liked, but at least we got to do the race run at the end there, and learned a lot in that time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Herne returns to GRM for the first time since 2023 when he last contested the S5000 Australian Drivers\u2019 Championship and Tasman Series with the squad.<\/p>\n

GRM is contesting its first Supercars event in six years, and both the team and Herne are learning the nuances of the series\u2019 current form together.<\/p>\n

The wildcard also marks a return to working together for Herne and Moffat, who were Trans Am teammates during Herne\u2019s title success.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe GRM boys, obviously it\u2019s been a fair while since they\u2019ve seen the cars as well, so we\u2019re all sort of learning on the fly,\u201d Herne said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been good with Moff, he\u2019s done 17 Bathursts now. So, between him, Russell [Ingall] and Marcos [Ambrose], I\u2019m not going to count how many Bathursts, but there\u2019s a lot of them!<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a lot of experience around me and hopefully we have a good car come Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Supercars returns on Friday for the first of two more practice sessions at 10:05am AEDT before qualifying in the afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nathan Herne and James Moffat’s first day in the GRM wildcard at Bathurst was all according to plan.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":920624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,140662,806,805,803,804,27558,9910,85,40367],"class_list":["post-920623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-garry-rogers-motorsport","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-nathan-herne","tag-slot2","tag-sports","tag-supercars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920623","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=920623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}