Unbeatable? The staggering Winterbottom streak that came to an end

The 2025 Repco Supercars Championship will be the first since 2003 without Mark Winterbottom, whose 21-year full-time stint came to end this year.

Winterbottom, who will race with Cam Waters and Tickford Racing at The Bend and Bathurst in 2025, started a remarkable 606 consecutive races since 2005.

Remarkably, if not for a dislodged grate in China, which led to a DNS, Winterbottom would have started a staggering 645 consecutive races.

The 2015 series champion is one of only three drivers, along with Craig Lowndes and Garth Tander, to start 600 or more ATCC/Supercars Championship races.

However, Lowndes and Tander both recorded at least one DNS in their careers, with both drivers transitioning to co-driving in 2019.

With 606 straight starts, Winterbottom looks set to hang onto that record for years to come, even though long-time rivals James Courtney and Will Davison are set to join the '600 club' in 2025.

Courtney and Davison will start 2025 on 578 and 570 races respectively, and will hit 600 at Townsville and Sandown. However, Courtney and Davison have both missed races in the last five years; Courtney was a non-starter after a fire at the 2023 Grand Prix event, while Davison was coincidentally left without a drive in 2020, with his seat filled by Courtney.

Second on the consecutive starts list is Shane van Gisbergen, who started all 511 career races from his 2007 debut to Adelaide 2023, before he moved to NASCAR. Only Winterbottom and van Gisbergen have started 500 or more races in a row.

Rick Kelly's streak ended at 457 races in 2017, with his run from Canberra 2002 ended by a crash and DNS in the infamous Tasmania pile-up in 2017.

Fabian Coulthard (431) and Jamie Whincup (423) are next on the list, with Coulthard starting all races from Adelaide 2008 to his final full-time start in 2021.

Whincup, meanwhile, had non-starts in Tasmania (2006) and Hamilton (2008), before he started every race until his full-time retirement at the end of 2021.

Most consecutive starts in ATCC/Supercars history

Current longest consecutive starts (2025 drivers)