The Mountain Doesn't Care How Ready You Are

The more time I spend working in this sport the less romantic I get about Bathurst and therefore the more it annoys me how much work goes into a race that’s worth the same points as the 500.

That would be a very unpopular opinion amongst fans and colleagues, but from someone who deals purely with numbers, data and logic daily, that’s how it feels.

Every year, every team is stuck in this dichotomy of ‘treat this race just like every other’ and ‘don’t change what we know works’ to try and alleviate the inevitable anxiety that everyone involved is going through. Up against the ‘everything leads to this’, ‘most important race of the year’ and ‘no mistakes’ mantra that is subconsciously forced onto us by the industry and broader media.

We could have six months to prepare and still feel underdone; the endurance races, and Bathurst especially, create so many new problems to be solved. Could our driver changes be faster? Could we have designed a better quick radio change system? Have we scheduled enough co-driver laps during practice? Have we got enough spares? Have the drivers got too many promotional activities? So many questions that we won’t know the answer to until Sunday night.

It's my go to answer anytime someone asks me during a race weekend how I’m going, ‘I’ll let you know in X hours…’, session results change everything. Any hour of track time could leave you feeling like Adrian Newey, or you could be on Webjet wishing you were on the next flight home.

The perfect way to surmise Bathurst 2025 at this stage is, same, same but different’.

There are more than enough changes to cloud everyone’s preparations in doubt. 

1. The new tyre
   
   Under the right conditions, it’s faster than a SuperSoft and has less degradation than the old Soft. Every year Bathurst is turning more into a 161-lap sprint, and never has that been truer than now. Most teams would agree that the new tyre this year has been a huge learning curve, everything has moved. The balance window, the pressure window, the warming procedure, and the depredation characteristics (thermal and physical) are all new. Taking an unknown like that into Bathurst is a huge metaphorical spanner.
   
   
2. Choose your starting driver
   
   This season should be forever known as the year of rule rollbacks. One of the most popular, is the option to start whoever you like. Thankfully logic prevailed and it was decided that everyone being on the exact same strategy for 6 hours was worse for TV than just letting the co-drivers start. Interestingly, however, there is still the random park on the top of the mountain on the reconnaissance lap for TV interviews in the schedule. Do we think Supercars has realised these interviews will be with 95% co-drivers?
   
   
3. Enduro fuel tank capacity change (133 L to 121 L)
   
   Another ongoing niggle for the Supercars Technical department is deciding how long they want the pit stops to be. Since the start of GEN3 we’ve had big tanks with slow fuel flow, then we had big tanks with faster flow, then big tanks with ‘more consistent, slightly slower’ flow, then smaller tanks with fast-ish fuel flow, and now, smaller tanks with slower flow. To try and put some logic into what sounds incredibly illogical: the category is trying to create less re-fuelling at sprint rounds, but shorter stints at enduros. As well as pit stops that are long enough to allow ‘safer’ driver and brake changes, but not so long that the rear brakes get warped while sitting in the box.
   
   
4. Back to the future safety car rules
   
   All that time we spent briefing drivers on the nine trillion possible safety car/slow zone scenarios at Tailem Bend, before a fully green race, and then the rule was thrown out, such a shame. Thank you, Mr. Seven-Time, for physically demonstrating what we were all thinking during practice at Tailem Bend. The FCY was probably one of the biggest ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ examples I have seen. The category/MA’s heart was in the right place, but they were trying to solve an issue we didn’t have, and in turn created so many more. What amazes me the most is that it took 18 months of this rule being in place before it dictated a race result. I know personally, that’s all we were thinking about from the start of 2024 was how long until people realise the potential power of this rule. The slow-zone was then the most temporary band-aid ever, trying to reduce the massive gain from pitting under FCY while keeping track marshals safe, but then endangering the cars that are still circulating.
   
   
5. Less ‘live’ pit lane sessions
   
   Something that is likely to go un-noticed by most is that the Bathurst schedule typically has two ‘live’ pit lane practice sessions. This is when teams are allowed to stop under their pit boom and complete full practice pit stops, this year there is only one (not including the warmup). This might seem minor but given how hard it is to give pit crew, full speed, full noise, full heat pit stop practice, this does affect session planning significantly. Teams will now be trying to get in as many stops for both cars as possible, throughout the one-hour Practice #6. This also ties up both car crews and stops the other team car from doing any tuning work as both crews are needed for pit stops. In addition to this, Practice 6 is the last session before the TTSO. So, anyone with a car involved in that must plan the session in way that leaves the car with low fuel and at least one set of greens for a TTSO simulation at the end.
   
   
6. Co-Driver Laps increased
   
   I don’t really know why this rule changed. This year the minimum laps a driver must complete changed from 33% (54 laps at Sandown and Bathurst) to 37% (38 laps at The Bend and 60 laps at Bathurst). It doesn’t really change the strategy that significantly, the co-driver still needs to do at least three stints, and any normal race strategy will see them double stint at some stage.

Even without the rule changes, there are of course many facets to the Bathurst weekend which are unique and require special attention.

We have six practice sessions, one qualifying, one TTSO, one warm up session, and one great race. We will plan every single lap of approximately seven hours of track time before we even get to Sunday. Every time the car leaves pit lane there is a very clear purpose and objective to achieve. Throughout this we juggle 15 sets of tyres, four sets of brakes, two drivers’ personalities, heavy fuel, light fuel, the list goes on. It is amazing how excessive that track time sounds, but how fast you can plan it away, too many co-driver laps and the main driver won’t feel like they’ve tuned the car, too much tuning and the co-driver will feel unprepared. You have to make sure you give the co-driver good enough tyres that they can push and find their limits, but not too good that the main driver thinks you’re wasting good tyres for balance tuning.

No other event on the calendar requires so much pre-planning and due diligence. Although many race engineers despise the session planning, often I do enjoy it. It’s not very often you get the luxury to spend excessive time on trying to outsmart your competitors with strategic decisions – they are usually made in haste.

Bathurst is like a mini pre-season that goes straight into a grand final. More time preparing than competing, then when you finally get to see the fruits of your labor, its on the biggest stage we have.

Now, taking all of this into consideration, and in contrast to my earlier statement about dealing purely in numbers, data and logic, I do, however, believe that the Mountain chooses its victor.

I am extremely lucky to have been involved in two Bathurst 1000 wins (2017 and 2024), and I wholeheartedly believe that to win this race you need two things: a fast car, and luck.

I’ve seen under-prepared victories, and over-prepared defeats, Bathurst is the ultimate motorsport box of chocolates.