{"id":925393,"date":"2026-10-12T12:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T12:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/925393\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T12:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T12:18:13","slug":"bathurst-1000-2026-glaring-issue-supercars-needs-to-change-boring-race-thrilling-finish-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/925393\/","title":{"rendered":"Bathurst 1000 2026: Glaring issue Supercars needs to change, boring race, thrilling finish, opinion"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a third snoozer of a Bathurst 1000<\/a> in four years, something needs to change in the Gen3 Supercar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hear me out.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Brodie Kostecki won his second Bathurst 1000 title, but outside the finish, the race was a snoozer.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s race was on the verge of going safety car free for the first time since 1991 before Chaz Mostert<\/a> crashed at Forrests Elbow with five laps to go.<\/p>\n

Yes, the three lap dash to the end was sensational<\/a>, and gave us the grandstand finish every fan had been hoping for.<\/p>\n

But 18.3km of brilliance does not offset 981.7km of … whatever that was.<\/p>\n

Sure, last year\u2019s edition was an all-time classic, but that was more or less triggered by the terrible weather conditions that set in over Mount Panorama in the latter part of the race.<\/p>\n

But 2023, 2024 and nearly all of 2026? Sheesh.<\/p>\n

Drivers all weekend were complaining about a bad batch of brakes that meant they didn\u2019t have the confidence when they jumped on the anchors.<\/p>\n

But it didn’t really matter anyway. The aero package meant it was tough to follow other cars, and if they managed to be close behind up and down the long straights, the Camaro in particular seemed to have an advantage.<\/p>\n

Look, I get it. Not every race can be a classic. We see crap games week in, week out in the AFL<\/a> and NRL<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But when your showpiece event, which attracts the casual fans, regularly offers little reason for them to stay tuned, something needs to change.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the blame was put on the soft tyre, which Supercars elected to run at Mount Panorama to ensure the then-new Gen3 cars remained quicker than the second-tier Super2 category, which ran the older-style cars.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s still as ridiculous a sentence to write now as it was then. Instead of pushing hard, the drivers were nursing the soft tyres to maximise the fuel stints.<\/p>\n

In 2024, there was a distinct lack of strategic variation. There was also only one safety car to bunch up the pack.<\/p>\n

The 2025 race was punctuated by safety cars, but there was still a feeling everyone was more or less waiting for the forecast rain to hit.<\/p>\n

And when it did, the race turned into a thriller.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Payne on his way to victory in last year’s Bathurst 1000.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

A lack of safety cars can be attributed to the reliability of this Gen3 car and the professionalism of the drivers.<\/p>\n

Long gone are the days when simply reaching the finish line is an achievement. Now, it\u2019s expected.<\/p>\n

The drivers, too, are the best they\u2019ve ever been. They simply do not make mistakes. The worst driver in Sunday\u2019s race would more than likely have been able to go blow-for-blow against Brock, Moffat, Johnson et al at their best.<\/p>\n

Late in Sunday\u2019s race, the amount of tyre marbles \u2013 pieces of rubber that flick off the tyres \u2013 that had settled off the racing line was incredible. Any driver that slipped up and ended up on the marbles would have booked themselves a one-way ticket to the concrete wall.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood celebrate victory in the 2026 Bathurst 1000.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

But they just didn’t, which is a testament to them.<\/p>\n

The pace of the race was blistering. The average speed was about 170km\/h all day, and to be able to maintain that level of concentration is mind-boggling.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not an engineer and I don\u2019t have the answer to all the problems.<\/p>\n

But hopefully, someone who is, does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a third snoozer of a Bathurst 1000 in four years, something needs to change in the Gen3…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":925394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-925393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925393","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=925393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/925394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}