How first Gen3 season shook up the pecking order
Supercars
02 Dec
2023 season produces 10 race winners, most since 2016
2000 and 2013 seasons produced record 13 different winners
First season of Gen3 also produced new champions
The first season of the Gen3 regulations not only delivered a new champion, but also a breadth of different winners.
The biggest headline of 2023 was Brodie Kostecki and Erebus Motorsport's remarkable championship double, with driver and team the benchmark in the first year of the new technical rules.
However, with Penrite Racing rookie Matt Payne winning the VAILO Adelaide 500, the 2023 season had its 10th different winner.
Only five seasons in the 64-year history of the top touring car championship in Australia have produced more different winners.
The 2000 and 2013 seasons lead the way with 13 different winners, with the 2001, 2014 and 2016 seasons producing 11 different winners.
The 2023 season went level with 1999, 2006 and 2008 with 10 different winners, with six different drivers winning the last seven races across four rounds.
Seven different teams also won, despite Erebus Motorsport and Triple Eight Race Engineering combining to win 20 of the season's 28 races. Tickford Racing, Penrite Racing, Team 18, Matt Stone Racing and Dick Johnson Racing also featured in victory lane.
In a sign of what's to come in the future, six of the 10 winners this season are aged under 30, with Payne and Broc Feeney only turning 21 this year.
Champion Kostecki is 26, with Will Brown 25, Anton De Pasquale 28, and Cam Waters 29.
There were also 10 different pole-sitters, from six different teams. Feeney, Thomas Randle and Jack Le Brocq all took their first career poles, with Andre Heimgartner taking his first pole since 2021 in Sydney for Brad Jones Racing. Of 25 full-time drivers, 15 claimed at least one podium.
It was also a year for drought-breakers, with Mark Winterbottom winning his first race since 2016, and David Reynolds his first since 2018. Jamie Whincup, meanwhile, combined to win the Penrite Oil Sandown 500 with Feeney and scored his first victory since 2021.
Kostecki's six wins were the fewest by a champion since Whincup won the 2017 crown with four race wins.
The 2024 Repco Supercars Championship will commence at the Thrifty Bathurst 500 on February 23-25. Tickets are on sale now.
Most winners in an ATCC/Supercars season
Different winners | Season/s |
|---|---|
13 | 2000, 2013 |
11 | 2001, 2014, 2016 |
10 | 1999, 2006, 2008, 2023 |
9 | 2002, 2004, 2007, 2015, 2018 |
8 | 1993, 1994, 1997, 2005, 2010, 2011, 2020 |
7 | 1996, 2003, 2009, 2017, 2021 |
6 | 1976, 1978, 1984, 1995, 1998, 2022 |
5 | 1982, 1992, 2019 |
4 | 1970, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 2012 |
3 | 1969, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1983, 1985, 1988, 1991 |
2 | 1981, 1983 |
1 | 1960-1968* |
*ATCC was decided by a single race between 1960 and 1968
