The 2019 Bathurst 1000 (formally known as the 2019 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000) was a motor racing event for Supercars which was held on the weekend of 10–13 October 2019. It was held at the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia and featured a single 1000 kilometre race. The event was the eleventh of fourteen in the 2019 Supercars Championship and incorporated Race 25 of the series. It was also the opening round of the 2019 Enduro Cup.
DJR Team Penske drivers Scott McLaughlin and Alexandre Prémat won the race from pole position, marking their first Bathurst 1000 win. It was also the first time Dick Johnson Racing—which merged with Team Penske in 2015— had won the race since 1994. The Triple Eight Race Engineering pair of Shane van Gisbergen and Garth Tander finished second, with Walkinshaw Andretti United's James Courtney and Jack Perkins completing the podium in third.
Report
Background
The event was the 62nd 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 marks the 59th time that the race was held at Mount Panorama. It was the 23rd running of the Australian 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. It was scheduled as the 21st race held as part of the Supercars Championship and the seventh time it forms part of the Enduro Cup. The defending winners of the race are Craig Lowndes and Steven Richards, who are competing with Jamie Whincup and Mark Winterbottom in 2019 respectively.
Scott McLaughlin lead the Drivers' Championship leading into the event, leading second-placed Shane van Gisbergen by just under two events' worth of points. Chaz Mostert sits in third ahead of McLaughlin's DJR Team Penske team-mate Fabian Coulthard. In the Teams' Championship, DJR Team Penske hold an 855-point lead over Triple Eight Race Engineering.
Entry list
Twenty-six cars were entered in the event – 16 Holden Commodores, 6 Ford Mustangs and 4 Nissan Altimas. In addition to the 24 regular-season entries, there were two 'Wildcards' – one for Super2 Series team Kostecki Brothers Racing with cousins Jake and Brodie Kostecki, and another from Walkinshaw Andretti United for IndyCar drivers Alexander Rossi and James Hinchcliffe. A third wildcard from Team Kiwi Racing, who last appeared in 2008, was also announced, featuring Chris van der Drift and Jaxon Evans as drivers – however this failed to materialise. Six drivers made their debut in the race; all four 'Wildcard' drivers, as well as Super2 Series competitors Thomas Randle and Jack Smith. It was the last start for five-time winner Steven Richards.
Entries with a grey background are wildcard entries which do not compete in the full championship season.
Summary
Thursday and Friday practice
Jamie Whincup topped the opening session with the fastest time for an opening session in Bathurst 1000 history. Macauley Jones had the first incident of the weekend, and the only one of the session, backing his Holden Commodore ZB into the wall at the Cutting. As well as doing damage to the rear bumper and chassis rail, the impact bizarrely popped the rivets out of the roof, which subsequently folded back on the car as the Tim Blanchard Racing driver stopped at Reid Park.
The first co-driver session was smattered with incidents, starting with multiple drivers running through the grass at the Chase. Twenty minutes into the session, the Mountain claimed its first major scalp with Luke Youlden hitting the wall at Sulman Park and ripping the front-right suspension out of the car, resigning it to the garage for the rest of the day. Jake Kostecki in the Kostecki Brothers Racing wildcard would make the same error at the end of the session, with Ashley Walsh bringing out the only other red flag of the session having locked up and run into the sandtrap at Murray's Corner. Jack Smith had a baptism of fire, brushing the tyre wall at Griffin's Bend in the Matt Stone Racing entry fifteen minutes in. James Moffat overtook DJR Team Penske's Alexandre Prémat in the dying seconds to set the fastest time in the GT Mustang.
Thursday's running ended with an incident-free third session, as championship leader McLaughlin broke his own Top Ten Shootout record by a tenth of a second on the first day of practice. The damaged #9 and #56 Commodores sat out the session, and all six Mustangs finished inside the top seven positions – the top six covered by less than three-tenths of a second.