A contact between Jamie Whincup and Scott McLaughlin handed Will Davison and Jonathon Webb the win, and a 15-second penalty pushed Whincup down the order.
Mount Panorama staged the race between 6 and 9 October 2016, and it was a Supercars race for the 59th Bathurst 1000. Will Davison and Jonathon Webb won for Tekno Autosports after a 15-second penalty dropped Jamie Whincup to eleventh.
Supercars staged its event from 6 to 9 October 2016 at Mount Panorama Circuit, close to Bathurst in New South Wales. Will Davison and Jonathon Webb won the single 1000 kilometre race for Tekno Autosports, after Jamie Whincup crossed the line first but was handed a 15-second time penalty. The result was then upheld through the appeal process.
Where and when was the 2016 Bathurst 1000 held?
Mount Panorama hosted the weekend from 6 to 9 October 2016. It was round eleven of fourteen in the series, and it also served as Race 21 and the second round of the Pirtek Enduro Cup. The circuit sits close to Bathurst, and the weekend ran across four days.
The race was the 59th edition of the Bathurst 1000. The event had begun at Phillip Island in 1960 as a 500-mile contest for Australian-made standard production sedans. It was the 56th time the race had been held at Mount Panorama and the 18th time it had formed part of the Supercars Championship.
A penalty applied after the flag gave Davison and Webb a win that the appeal never overturned.
What was the Peter Brock Trophy, and why did it matter this year?
Ten years had passed since the Peter Brock Trophy was introduced in 2006, following Brock's death in a Targa West rally crash a month before that race. Brock won nine times at Bathurst, and the trophy was introduced to honour his memory.
The weekend also honoured Mark Porter, killed after a crash in a support event during 2006.
Who led the championship going into the event?
Shane van Gisbergen led the drivers' championship by seven points from his Triple Eight teammate Jamie Whincup, with Craig Lowndes third, 157 points behind. Triple Eight also held a 1273-point lead over Holden Racing Team in the teams' championship. Van Gisbergen's seven-point margin was the closest contest at the top of the table.
Holden Racing Team's Garth Tander and Warren Luff headed the Enduro Cup, 24 points clear of the Triple Eight pair van Gisbergen and Premat.
How did practice and qualifying go?
Whincup spun at the final corner in the opening practice session, got stuck in the sand trap and caused a red flag. In the second session Golding drifted wide at Turn 6 and hit the outside wall hard, leaving Garry Rogers Motorsport unable to repair the car for practice three.
Whincup was quickest in the opening practice at 2:05.9500 and later set the best lap of the weekend so far, 2:05.1494. Qualifying on Friday was a 40-minute session, and Whincup set the early benchmark at 2:05.5157.
Davies and Simona de Silvestro each had their fastest times removed after going into the sand trap at the Chase. Whincup then set 2:05.0481 with two minutes remaining, and McLaughlin finished one tenth of a second behind him.
Slade was third despite an electrical problem that left him without key information for much of the session. Lowndes, the defending race winner, qualified 21st after struggling with his car through practice.
| Qualifying | Driver | Note |
|---|---|---|
| First | Jamie Whincup | Fastest in qualifying |
| Second | Scott McLaughlin | One tenth behind Whincup |
| Third | Tim Slade | Electrical problem for much of the session |
| Twenty-first | Craig Lowndes | Defending race winner |
Who took pole in the Top 10 Shootout?
The shootout ran in reverse order of qualifying, with each driver completing one flying lap. Mark Winterbottom, Shane van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin were among the ten drivers in it. Whincup's final lap of 2:05.4263 took pole, under a tenth of a second ahead of McLaughlin.
It was Whincup's second Bathurst pole position, but he downplayed its importance, saying there were no points for qualifying on pole.
What happened during the race?
Whincup was second behind McLaughlin in the closing stages when he tried to pass him into the Chase. Tander, who was third, was caught up in the contact too. They made contact, and McLaughlin slid across the grass as he left the corner.
Whincup eased off so McLaughlin could rejoin in front of him. Tander, running third directly behind the pair, tried to pass both drivers, but McLaughlin rejoined and ran into the side of the Holden Racing Team car, knocking both Tander and McLaughlin out of contention while Whincup carried on.
A safety car came out to clean up the incident. Todd Kelly then spun into the gravel on lap 158, which brought the safety car out again. Whincup had been trying to build a 15-second gap over Davison at that point.
On the road Whincup had won, but the 15-second penalty applied after the race dropped him to eleventh and gave the win to Davison and Webb.
How did the teams respond to the penalty?
A $10,000 fee came with the appeal that team manager Mark Dutton lodged with the CAMS Stewards for Triple Eight. Triple Eight's case was that the penalty clashed with how the rules had been explained to teams that year, including three levels of offence and the option to give back a position gained in a pass.
Triple Eight owner Roland Dane said the 15-second penalty was about the McLaughlin incident alone. He added that the stewards had confirmed the penalty had nothing to do with the aftermath of the incident.
The Supercars National Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on 18 October, taking just 50 minutes for its three-man panel to do so. Red Bull Racing Australia then had seven days to decide whether to take the dispute to the FIA's International Court of Appeal. The international court was therefore the team's last route, in a dispute that had started with a single contact at the Chase.
Holden Racing Team owner Ryan Walkinshaw called the result gutting for his team. He said the team would probably have won the race if Whincup had not slowed the way he did, and Scott McLaughlin later apologised.
Two-time Bathurst winner John Bowe backed Whincup's appeal in a statement on Facebook, describing him as an extremely fair driver.
Who finished where?
Davison and Webb won, with van Gisbergen and Premat second for Triple Eight and Nick Percat and Cameron McConville third for Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport. Garth Tander was out of contention after the contact. McLaughlin limped home twelfth, and Whincup finished eleventh after the time penalty.
| Finish | Drivers | Team |
|---|---|---|
| First | Will Davison and Jonathon Webb | Tekno Autosports |
| Second | Shane van Gisbergen and Alexandre Premat | Triple Eight Race Engineering |
| Third | Nick Percat and Cameron McConville | Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport |
| Eleventh | Jamie Whincup | Dropped after the 15-second penalty |
| Twelfth | Scott McLaughlin | Limped home after the collision |
What did the result mean for the trophy and the championship?
The dismissal of Whincup's appeal tightened Davison and Webb's grip on the Peter Brock Trophy. The three-man Court of Appeal panel dismissed the case quickly, and the provisional result stood. The result was a blow to Holden's hopes of a Bathurst win, since Walkinshaw had called it gutting.
Simona de Silvestro and Renee Gracie returned under the Harvey Norman Supergirls banner, in a Nissan Altima L33 that Kelly Racing had built.
Supercars Media produced the telecast, which Fox Sports Australia carried on Fox Sports 506. Network 10 carried select sessions from midday Friday on channels 10 and 10 Bold.
