{"id":928795,"date":"2026-10-15T07:38:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T07:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/928795\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T07:38:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T07:38:18","slug":"supercars-bathurst-1000-heroics-announce-zach-bates-as-a-star-of-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/928795\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars: Bathurst 1000 heroics announce Zach Bates as a star of the future"},"content":{"rendered":"

ZACH Bates couldn\u2019t have picked a better place to announce himself to the Australian public.<\/p>\n

The Canberran has always been well regarded, not only for being a fine talent but an ultra-friendly chap.<\/p>\n

Of course, pedigree is aplenty. His uncle Neal and cousins Harry and Lewis all have Australian Rally Championship crowns to their credit. Zach\u2019s father Rick similarly enjoyed several off-road successes, not to mention multiple Bathurst 1000 starts.<\/p>\n

Zach shone in Toyota 86s, then matched up reasonably well against Walkinshaw Super2 teammate Ryan Wood<\/a>, then won the 2024 Supercars feeder series title, then dazzled on main game debut last year at Queensland Raceway.<\/p>\n

In February, Bates qualified top 10 for all three races in the opening round of his rookie campaign with Matt Stone Racing.<\/p>\n

But after a wretched mid-season run, there were few who could have anticipated what would transpire on the biggest stage there is in Supercars.<\/p>\n

\"\"The #10 Chevrolet flew under the radar during the first few practice sessions. Pic: Supplied\/Mark Horsburgh<\/p>\n

Having yet to record a top-eight race result, and sitting 18th in the overall points, it\u2019s understandable why the 22-year-old was not on the radar of many.<\/p>\n

He sure is now.<\/p>\n

Bates turned up the wick in remarkable fashion in parallel with the stakes rising throughout Great Race weekend.<\/p>\n

He set not the only fastest lap in qualifying, but the fastest two (!) laps. They are the fastest two laps ever in a Gen3 Supercar around Mount Panorama.<\/p>\n

That was one thing. It wouldn\u2019t have been a shock, nor would it have been frowned upon, if he drifted thereafter.<\/p>\n

But the more pressure and spotlight intensified, the more he flourished.<\/p>\n

Come the Top 10 Shootout, Brodie Kostecki<\/a> put himself on the cusp of history with an outstanding time that proved too good for subsequent runners Will Brown<\/a>, Cooper Murray<\/a> and Anton De Pasquale<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The last man standing, Bates ragged his Bendix Camaro in truly impressive fashion. The Camaro\u2019s straight-line superiority was always going to help in the first and third sectors, but for Bates to gap the field by a tenth of a second in the middle sector alone (i.e. across the top of the Mountain) was the stuff of legend.<\/p>\n

He went quickest of all in every sector and, with the nation watching on, roared to pole position with 0.2850s in hand to end Kostecki\u2019s reign.<\/p>\n

\u201cZach Bates<\/a>, you are a star,\u201d Richard Craill called, fittingly, on the broadcast.<\/p>\n

\"\"Zach Bates. Pic: Supplied\/Kass Brumley<\/p>\n

Still, from there, Bates and co-driver Aaron Seton<\/a> did not relent, standing tall to finish third for an underdog podium.<\/p>\n

Had it not been for a late-race Safety Car, the unheralded duo almost certainly would have combined for arguably the biggest boilover win in event history.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, Bates was freight-trained by Kostecki and Brown in the dying stages before De Pasquale up the road would run out of fuel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI made a small mistake at the Chase and that\u2019s what set Brodie up for the last corner. He did an intelligent move, a good move, and got it done,\u201d Bates confessed post-race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI obviously knew that he had a good tyre delta in hand and that it was going to be tough. They had been so fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, there was no detracting from an almighty breakout performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew he could do it and he picked a hell of a place to do it fully, so we\u2019re stoked,\u201d said MSR owner Matt Stone.<\/p>\n

Bates won\u2019t be a finals contender as the Supercars championship fight heads to the Gold Coast next week, and he still has not yet even officially been announced for a seat on the 2027 grid.<\/p>\n

But his Bathurst heroics won\u2019t be forgotten in a hurry and are sure to have his name firmly on the map for a long time to come.<\/p>\n

\"\"Pic: Ross Gibb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ZACH Bates couldn\u2019t have picked a better place to announce himself to the Australian public. The Canberran has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":928796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-928795","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\/928795","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=928795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/928796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=928795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=928795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=928795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}