2023 Bathurst 1000
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| Event Information | ||||||||||||||
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| Round 10 of 12 in the 2023 Supercars Championship | ||||||||||||||
 Layout of the Mount Panorama Circuit | ||||||||||||||
| Date | October 5–8 2023 | |||||||||||||
| Location | Bathurst, New South Wales | |||||||||||||
| Venue | Mount Panorama Circuit | |||||||||||||
| Results | ||||||||||||||
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The 2023 Bathurst 1000 (known as the 2023 Repco Bathurst 1000 for commercial reasons) was a motor racing event for Supercars held on the week of 5 to 8 October 2023. It hosted the tenth round of the 2023 Supercars Championship and took place at the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, featuring a single race of 1000 kilometres.
New Zealanders Shane van Gisbergen and Richie Stanaway claimed victory for Triple Eight Race Engineering, the teams' tenth Bathurst 1000 win. It was Van Gisbergen's third victory in four years, and the first win for Stanaway. The duo were only the second all-Kiwi crew to win the race after Greg Murphy and Steven Richards in 1999, and their 19.9-second margin of victory was the largest since the same race. The race was also won by a Chevrolet for the first time, with sixth-generation Camaros finishing first and second against a backdrop of participant and public discontent related to technical parity between the Camaros and rival Ford Mustangs.[1][2]
Background
- Event history
The event was the 66th running of the Bathurst 1000, which was first held at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit in 1960 as a 500-mile race for Australian-made standard production sedans, and marked the 63rd time that the race was held at Mount Panorama. It was the 27th running of the "Australia 1000" race, which was first held after the organisational split between the Australian Racing Drivers Club and V8 Supercars Australia that saw two "Bathurst 1000" races contested in both 1997 and 1998. The event also celebrated the 60th anniversary of the first running of the Armstrong 500 at Mount Panorama, with promotional material reflecting this milestone.[3][4]
Chevrolet returned to the event for the first time since 1984, while also marking the first time in the event's history that Holden did not take part.
Shane van Gisbergen and Garth Tander entered the event as defending race winners, but did not compete together. Van Gisbergen remained with Triple Eight Race Engineering, while Tander moved to Grove Racing.[5]
- Parity concerns
This was the first Bathurst 1000 held under Supercars Championships' "Gen3" regulations, which were centred around American pony cars (namely the sixth-generation Chevrolet Camaro and the S650-model Ford Mustang) following the demise of Holden.[6] Throughout the 2023 season, Ford Performance and Ford teams expressed concerns over a lack of technical parity between the two models – exacerbated by Mustangs winning only two of the preceding 23 races (one of which through the disqualification of two Camaros).[7]
Supercars opened an inquest into parity following the Darwin round, resulting in a revised rear aero package for the Mustang ahead of the Townsville 500.[8][9] Prior to the Bathurst 1000, Ford and its teams pushed for further alterations to the Mustang's aero package. A meeting between Supercars officials and teams was mooted, and later cancelled in favour of intra-manufacturer meetings.[10] As a result of pushback from Chevrolet teams and a pre-determined parity "trigger" having not been met, Ford's proposals were rejected by Supercars.[11]
Entry list
Twenty-eight cars entered the event - 15 Chevrolet Camaros and 13 Ford Mustangs. In addition to the twenty-five regular-season entries, three "wildcard" entrants joined the field – one from Blanchard Racing Team, one from Dick Johnson Racing, and one from Triple Eight Race Engineering.[12][13][14]
Three drivers made their Bathurst 1000 debut; FIA World Endurance Championship driver Kévin Estre, and Super2 Series drivers Kai Allen and Aaron Love. Estre and the returning Simona de Silvestro were the first drivers from outside of Australia and New Zealand to participate in the event since De Silvestro, James Hinchcliffe, Alexandre Prémat and Alexander Rossi in 2019.[15][13]
