How Kostecki/Hazelwood could break new Bathurst ground in 2025

Todd Hazelwood's reunion with Brodie Kostecki at Dick Johnson Racing could see the Bathurst winners break new Great Race ground in 2025.

Kostecki and Hazelwood, who won the Repco Bathurst 1000 in an Erebus Motorsport Chevrolet Camaro in October, will share a Shell V-Power Ford Mustang next year.

The duo dominated the 2024 Great Race, leading 157 of 161 laps after starting from pole position, with Kostecki and Hazelwood claiming their first wins in the 1000km classic.

Come 2025, and they'll be aboard a Ford, with DJR already eyeing a big 2025 after making a series of high-profile changes, none greater than Kostecki's signing.

Remarkably, the Kostecki/Hazelwood combination will be just the third pairing in history, and first in 32 years, to win the Great Race and turn up together 12 months later in a different car.

In the first two instances, the winners finished second the following year. Bruce McPhee and Barry Mulholland won the 1968 race in a Holden HK Monaro, and finished runner-up 12 months later in a Ford XW Falcon.

Mark Skaife and Jim Richards infamously won in a Nissan Skyline in 1992, with sweeping rule changes seeing the duo return in 1993 in a Holden VP Commodore. Like McPhee/Barry Mulholland, Skaife/Richards also finished second.

Skaife/Richards are, however, the only duo to win the Bathurst 1000 in different cars, backing up their 1992 win in a Holden 10 years later.

Bob Jane and Harry Firth, who won the first ever Great Race at Mount Panorama in a Ford Cortina in 1963, won the 500-mile Phillip Island race in a Mercedes-Benz 220SE, before winning the 1962 and 1963 races in Fords.

Ford fans will be hoping Kostecki and Hazelwood can create their own slice of history, with the Blue Oval winless in the Great Race following Scott McLaughlin/Alex Premat's triumph in 2019.

Drivers turning up 12 months later in a different car is nothing new, although McPhee/Barry Mulholland, Skaife/Richards and Kostecki/Hazelwood will be the only pairings to turn up in different machinery.

It stretches right back to 1965 winner Bo Seton, who traded a Ford for a Morris in 1966. Tony Roberts jumped from Holden to Ford in 1970, before Larry Perkins followed up his three consecutive wins with Peter Brock and the Holden Dealer Team to race with Dick Johnson and Ford in 1985.

Even Brock did it, winning his ninth and final Great Race in a Commodore in 1987, before returning in a BMW in 1988. The 1988 winner Tomas Mezera, meanwhile, traded a Ford Sierra for a Holden Commodore in 1989.

Mezera's 1988-winning co-driver Tony Longhurst also won the 2001 race with Skaife and Holden, before sharing a Briggs Motor Sport Falcon with Matthew White in 2002.

Briggs Motor Sport became Triple Eight Race Engineering, which helped Shane van Gisbergen to three wins. Van Gisbergen's third win, while in the General Motors family, did come in a Chevrolet, his first two in Holdens. Van Gisbergen won the 2023 race with Richie Stanaway, who raced a Penrite Racing Ford last October.

The links continue to Garth Tander, who won the 2022 race with van Gisbergen in a Commodore, before joining Penrite Racing and Ford in 2023. A year earlier, 2021 winner Lee Holdsworth traded a Walkinshaw Andretti United Holden for a Penrite Ford.

If Kostecki and Hazelwood can back it up in 2025, they would become the first duo to win the Bathurst 1000 in different cars in consecutive years.

Steven Richards achieved the rare feat, winning with Stone Brothers Racing and Ford in 1998, before backing it up with Gibson Motorsport and Holden in 1999.

Richards, son of seven-time winner Jim, also won the 2013 race with Ford Performance Racing, before returning in 2014 with Triple Eight and Holden.

Tickets for next year's Repco Bathurst 1000, as well as the majority of 2025 events, are on sale now.