Cooper Murray showed glimpses of speed in 2025, highlighted by a mighty performance at Bathurst. Can the 24-year-old lead Erebus back to the podium?
Cooper Murray returns for his second year at Erebus following a rookie campaign that displayed plenty of promise.
The standout was a brilliant Enduro Cup campaign, finishing sixth at The Bend, before nearly pulling off one of the biggest Bathurst upsets before a late-race collision with James Golding.
Murray has shown plenty of speed in his brief main game career, starring in Triple Eight's wildcard with a Shootout berth on debut in 2024 at Darwin, before jagging a top five finish at the Sandown 500.
The former Porsche Carrera Cup Australia frontrunner burst out of the blocks with Eggleston Motorsport in 2023, winning the first race of the year in Newcastle before adding another at Sandown en route to fourth overall.
He had a horror start to his 2024 Super2 campaign, electing to step away at Bathurst to focus on his Great Race debut with Craig Lowndes.
His Erebus deal was announced following his Darwin debut, however Murray got a headstart in Adelaide as he deputised for Jack Le Brocq, who left the event for the birth of his first child.
Murray began racing karts at the age of 10, winning a pair of Australasian championship titles and six state titles before graduating to car racing in 2016.
After two seasons of racing in national and state-level Formula Ford, Murray moved onto the Porsche Motorsport ladder in 2018. He impressed on debut in the Porsche Michelin GT3 Cup Challenge taking eight wins from 17 starts but ended up second in the final series standings after clutch failure at the start of the last race.
Graduating to Carrera Cup in 2019, a mid-season team switch to McElrea Racing delivered an immediate hat-trick of wins in Townsville and podium finishes through the rest of the season.
He took that momentum into 2020, sweeping all three races at Adelaide's opening round and finishing third in the sole race held at Albert Park before the COVID-19 pandemic prematurely ended the category's season.
Murray was again a contender for the Carrera Cup title in 2021, finishing second to Cameron Hill and earning a call-up to the prestigious global Porsche Junior Shootout.
Although Murray spent 2022 largely on the sidelines, he logged testing and evaluation miles behind the wheel of a Triple Eight-built ZB Commodore, the very car he raced in 2023.
