20 years on: The most dominant season ever?

The 2022 Repco Supercars Championship marks the 20th anniversary of Mark Skaife’s dominant charge to the 2002 championship.

If you kept an eye on 2021, you witnessed Shane van Gisbergen win 14 races en route to a second title.

However, a final-round Bathurst disaster due to a tyre delamination ensured champion-elect van Gisbergen goes down as a title winner by 211 points.

When it comes to championship-winning points margins, Skaife’s 2002 effort is head and shoulders above the rest.

Skaife opened 2002 with Adelaide victory

Skaife become the second driver, after Craig Lowndes in 1996, to win 15 or more races in a season.

The feat was matched by Garth Tander (2007) and Jamie Whincup (2008), and bettered by Scott McLaughlin (18 wins in 2019).

Of a season which featured more than 25 races, Skaife’s win percentage of 51.7 per cent is only bettered by McLaughlin (62.1 per cent) and Lowndes (55.2 per cent).

Skaife, already a four-time champion when 2002 came around, was riding the highs of consecutive titles in 2000 and 2001.

HRT at the front; a familiar sight in 2002

He won seven races in 2000, and nine in 2001 including the Great Race alongside Tony Longhurst. In 2002, he went to another level.

Skaife won seven of 13 rounds in 2002, including the first five on the trot. After the fifth round win in a row, in Canberra, he was already miles ahead.

He won at nine of 13 rounds, only missing out at Winton (two races), Ipswich (one race), Gold Coast (two races) and Sandown (two races).

McLaughlin reset the benchmark in 2019, winning at least one race in the opening 12 rounds of the season.

Skaife almost eclipsed Lowndes' 16-win marker

Whincup won at eight different events in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2013. He won at nine in 2012 and 2014, the seasons he clinched the title with a round to spare.

Lowndes won in eight of the 10 events in seasons 1996 and 1998. Van Gisbergen won at nine events in 2021.

Between them, Skaife and Holden Racing Team teammate Jason Bright won 19 races, keeping Ford to a miserly four wins in 29 attempts in 2002.

By season’s end, Skaife was champion over Greg Murphy by a staggering 658 points, having won by 603 points 12 months earlier. Both remain the largest ever margins.

Bathurst victory topped off a brilliant season

Skaife also scored a fourth Bathurst win from pole position alongside Jim Richards, who at 55, became the oldest driver to win a championship race.

Skaife became the first driver to score a championship-Bathurst double three times. To date, only four other drivers have achieved a championship-Bathurst double more than once.

The 13-event 2022 Repco Supercars Championship will commence in Newcastle in March. Tickets for the event are on sale now.

The 13-round draft calendar was released during the Repco Bathurst 1000 weekend.

Largest championship-winning points margins

658 points: Mark Skaife over Greg Murphy in 2002603 points: Mark Skaife over Russell Ingall in 2001583 points: Jamie Whincup over Shane van Gisbergen in 2014562 points: Scott McLaughlin over Shane van Gisbergen in 2019451 points: Scott McLaughlin over Cameron Waters in 2020339 points: Jamie Whincup over Craig Lowndes in 2012305 points: Jamie Whincup over Will Davison in 2009253 points: Jamie Whincup over Mark Winterbottom in 2008238 points: Mark Winterbottom over Craig Lowndes in 2015238 points: Mark Winterbottom over Craig Lowndes in 2015