Rapid 2024 race breaks Bathurst 1000 record

A rapid 2024 edition of the Repco Bathurst 1000 is officially the fastest of all time.

The 161-lap race, won by Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood, was completed in five hours, 58 minutes and 3.0649 seconds.

Sunday’s race, the first to crack the six-hour mark, eclipsed the previous record set in 2018 by winners Craig Lowndes and Steven Richards.

Lowndes and Richards won the 2018 Great Race in six hours, one minute and 44.8637 seconds — a year before Kostecki’s Bathurst debut.

The 2024 race was headlined by a stunning 132-lap period of green flag running, which came to an end when Matt Payne crashed at The Cutting.

The 2018 race broke the previous record set by Lowndes and Mark Skaife in 2010, which was won in six hours, 12 minutes and 51.4153 seconds.

The 2010 race beat a record that had stood since 1991, when Skaife and Jim Richards raced their Nissan Skyline to victory in six hours, 19 minutes, 14.80 seconds.

That 1991 race was the last to be run without a Safety Car period, with 2024 looming to match that marker if not of Payne’s accident.

Payne was the only DNF in the race, setting a record for the highest finishing percentage — 96.2 percent — in the Great Race.

There were also 20 cars on the lead lap, beating the previous record of 19 shared by the 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2022 races.