25 best Supercars drivers since 2000: #21 Lee Holdsworth
As 2025 gets underway, Supercars.com is ranking the top 25 drivers of the last 25 years, continuing with Lee Holdsworth, who comes in as our #21.
One of the most respected figures in the paddock for nearly 20 years, Lee Holdsworth was a seriously determined racer at his peak, and often punched above his weight.
Plucked out of obscurity by Garry Rogers, Holdsworth showed glimpses of speed in his first season in 2006, before powering into everyone’s attention in 2007. A stunning race and round win, in the wet at Oran Park, delivered a result that reminded all that Rogers could find the good ones.
Holdsworth opened 2008 with an Adelaide 500 podium, claimed a maiden Bathurst podium in 2009, and scored a brilliant final-race win on the Sydney Olympic Park streets in 2010. Holdsworth could easily have won the 2010 Great Race, amid a superb charge by David Bernard, but a penalty ultimately kept him waiting.
Like many drivers, Holdsworth’s career had its tough moments, with the nadir a terrible run at Team 18. There were huge hits in Sandown and Bathurst in 2014, and a crash that sent him to hospital in Darwin two years later. However, he never gave up, fighting for podiums with Stone Brothers Racing, and claiming a shock win aboard a sponsor-less Erebus Motorsport Mercedes in 2014.
Holdsworth joined Tickford Racing in 2019, and the form returned. He was in the hunt for victory in Pukekohe before a Safety Car error, claimed a Sandown 500 podium with a young Thomas Randle, and took home more silverware in 2020, which ended with a brilliant provisional pole in Bathurst.
Then, poor luck caught up with him, Holdsworth left out after Tickford downscaled to three cars. Walkinshaw Andretti United came calling, putting Holdsworth alongside Chaz Mostert, and he delivered arguably the most impressive co-driver performance of the last 25 years at the Mountain to win.
He scored a final season with Grove Racing, and amid a series of awesome results, Holdsworth earned the right to call it a day — a fitting footnote on a career worth a million words, and an emotional Barry Sheene Medal.
Lee Holdsworth's key stats since 2000
Years active: 2004-present
Rounds: 231
Races: 512
Best championship position: 7th (2010)
Best finish: 1st (4 wins)
Top three finishes: 21
Best start: 1st (4 pole positions)
Best Bathurst result: 1st (2021)
The highlight
Few drivers can say they’ve won the Bathurst 1000, and following such a rollercoaster career, Holdsworth’s was more deserving than many.
Mostert had done it before, but never led in 2014. In 2021, they set the pace, but there were several moments in that race where they could’ve dropped the ball.
Holdsworth was incredible from the word go, stealing the lead back by The Chase on lap 1 after losing it off the line. He then gapped the field easily each time he stepped in the car, gave the car back to Mostert in strong positions, and was rewarded with the Peter Brock Trophy.
It was a performance you have to tip your cap to, and given his various successes across a range of teams in a hugely competitive landscape, Holdsworth deserves to go down as one of the best modern era fighters we’ve seen.
The scale of this achievement has Holdsworth ahead of the likes of Cam Waters, Jason Bright, Broc Feeney and Fabian Coulthard, who have all been unable to break through at the Mountain this century.
Why we picked him
On paper, four wins and 18 podiums isn’t the biggest haul, but Holdsworth’s ability to keep fighting and extract results was truly admirable. No one expected the 2007 Oran Park win, but at 24, he made it look easy as all around him stumbled and fumbled.
The 2010 Sydney win may have come at Shane van Gisbergen’s expense, but it was Holdsworth’s pressure that delivered the win. Then, there’s the 2014 Winton win, truly one of the shock results of the last 25 years, but one Holdsworth still had to earn.
At 37, Holdsworth still had plenty of performance in the tank by the time Tickford gave him the tap on the shoulder, and WAU made one of its best recent calls to sign him. Holdsworth was flawless on race day, with the duo surviving a mid-race puncture.
In 2022, Grove Racing could have taken a punt on a young driver, or found someone else. Holdsworth was the right guy for the job, putting on several charges through the field, a highlight being his epic charge to the podium at the Grand Prix. As mentioned, he earned the right to call it a day, something not many get to do.
The views in this article do not necessarily express the opinions of Supercars, teams or drivers.
