The unexpected firsts in unpredictable Bathurst 1000 podium

The 2025 Repco Bathurst 1000 delivered one of the most unexpected podium trifectas in the history of the Great Race.

After 161 dramatic laps, a podium order few could've predicted celebrated what was the wildest of days.

It proved true in Supercars’ PIRTEK Pick the Podium competition; only 5% of fans picked Matt Payne/Garth Tander as the winners in their podium submissions. Fans were less confident in the next two; David Reynolds/Lee Holdsworth gained 1.2% of votes as runner-up, with James Golding/David Russell at 0.3%.

Payne and Tander claimed Ford's first Bathurst win since 2019, and first of the Gen3 era, keeping a clean car among all of the chaos around them.

In Stephen and Brenton Grove's fourth attempt at the Bathurst 1000 as outright team owners, the father and son team owners tasted ultimate glory. However, success at Mount Panorama isn't unfamiliar, Stephen a five-time Bathurst 12 Hour class winner, and Brenton a three-time class winner.

It is worth noting that in their previous Kelly Racing/Nissan guise, the team statistically has a further two podiums, a third for Greg Murphy and the late Allan Simonsen in 2011, and a second for James Moffat and Taz Douglas in a 2014 epic.

Payne also recorded his first Bathurst podium, whilst for Tander it was a first Bathurst win driving a Ford, his previous five having all come at the helm of a Holden.

Second on the podium was Team 18's Reynolds and Holdsworth, with a flying Reynolds earning his first Bathurst podium since his 2017 win with Erebus Motorsport.

Charlie Schwerkolt's operation had endured all kinds of heartache in recent years at Bathurst, power steering dramas in 2021, an inter-team clash in 2022, a catastrophic strategic bungle in 2023, and Reynolds' monster qualifying crash last year.

However, those demons were banished on Sunday, with a maiden Bathurst trophy a welcome boost to the team as they prepare to head GM's charge as their homologation team in 2026.

The podium was also the first podium foundation driver Holdsworth scored with Team 18. Holdsworth returned to the operation for this year's Ryco Enduro Cup following three fruitless full-time campaigns from 2016-18.

The team they beat to securing the role as Triple Eight's replacement was PremiAir Racing, who took the final step on the rostrum, and very nearly the top step.

Much like Penrite Racing, this year marked Peter Xiberras' fourth attempt at claiming the Bathurst 1000, however the team, and especially Golding, have shown prodigious speed at Mount Panorama.

Golding was running in the top five in 2022 before splitter damage delayed their day, he qualified a sensational provisional second in 2023, and finished sixth last year alongside Russell.

Now, both Golding and PremiAir are first-timers on the Bathurst podium, and if it wasn't for contact with Cooper Murray, they could both very well be Bathurst winners with Russell, who claimed his third Bathurst podium.