25 best Supercars drivers since 2000: #4 Mark Skaife
As 2025 gets underway, Supercars.com is ranking the top 25 drivers of the last 25 years, continuing with Mark Skaife, who comes in as our #4.
A two-time ATCC champion and Bathurst winner by the year 2000, Mark Skaife was already one of the established stars of Supercars at a Holden Racing Team that was going from strength-to-strength.
With Craig Lowndes established as the better performing of the two superstars at Clayton, Skaife turned the tide at the start of the 21st century and went on a remarkable run of dominance.
Three championships and two Bathurst wins in the first three years of the 2000s cemented his legacy as one of the all-time greats of Australian touring car racing, equalling the then-record of Dick Johnson and Ian Geoghegan with five ATCC titles.
Further Bathurst wins in 2005 and 2010 (reunited with former HRT teammate Lowndes at Triple Eight) saw his tally at the Mountain finish with six wins, tied with Larry Perkins, and only behind Lowndes, Jim Richards, and Peter Brock.
Although the latter days of his career saw a dip in performance amid off track focuses with the HRT, Skaife was still a race winner throughout the remainder of his full-time career in Supercars.
Mark Skaife's key stats since 2000
Years active: 2000-2011
Rounds: 125
Races: 273
Best championship position: 1st (2000, 2001, 2002)
Best finish: 1st (56 wins)
Top three finishes: 118
Best start: 1st (28 pole positions)
Best Bathurst result: 1st (2001, 2002, 2005, 2010)
The highlight
2002 had been a dominant season for Skaife and the Holden Racing Team, and a reunion with former Gibson Motorsport teammate and then-six time Bathurst winner Jim Richards was a frightening prospect at The Great Race.
Sure enough, the #1 VX Commodore was the class of the field that day, and looked set to claim a comfortable victory until the closing stages of the 161 lap race.
Strong winds at Mount Panorama saw all manners of debris blown onto the circuit, with plastic bags a particular concern after Lowndes and Neil Crompton's AU Falcon fell out from a strong position with a cooked engine.
When plastic bags filled the front of Skaife's car, engine temperatures were sent soaring, with a concerned HRT bunker uncertain as to whether or not Skaife could maintain his speed with which he was holding the lead.
Skaife was able to hold on and nurse the car home to the finish with just under three seconds in hand over the Steven Richards/Russell Ingall Commodore for Perkins Engineering.
To underscore just how dominant a season the HRT spearhead had in 2002, Skaife clinched his fifth and final Supercars title by virtue of his Bathurst win, clinching the crown with three rounds to spare.
Why we picked him
Put simply, Skaife and the HRT redefined what it meant to be a professional racing driver and professional racing team in Australian motorsport.
When Skaife joined the HRT, he brought a meticulous and methodical approach to racing that moved the goalposts for the standards any individual or team had to meet to rise to the top in Supercars.
The 2001 and 2002 seasons for Skaife were particularly ruthless, with the competition not having an answer for either Skaife or the HRT as they swept both championships and both Bathurst 1000s in that period.
The views in this article do not necessarily express the opinions of Supercars, teams or drivers.
