This is an exclusive pre-event Supercars.com column by championship-winning Race Engineer Scott Sinclair. Sinclair will preview and debrief each round of the 2026 Repco Supercars Championship from his own perspective.
What makes a good co-driver?
Broadly speaking, co-driver success comes down to three things: being close in lap time to the main driver (ideally within 0.3 seconds), making no mistakes that compromise your race, and being able to make a clean overtake when you've got the speed. The first two are obvious. The third is more important than is often realised.
Being stuck behind someone with speed you can't use is the beginning of the end. The time loss is huge, and all the engineer can do is pray for a Safety Car to close the gap. The opposite is also true: botch an overtake that causes damage or an off-track excursion, and it makes for a long afternoon.
Despite it being classed as an endurance race, the time to get overtakes done is at the start. Last year, 32% of all overtakes happened between laps 2 and 10, the window where those under attack are still thinking, 'It's a long race, we'll get them back later'. The data suggests that's a false economy: only five of those 41 early overtakes were reversed later in the race.
The other consideration is how long you can sit within striking distance and still expect to make the pass. At The Bend, on equal tyres, if you haven't got it done within two laps, you've got about a one in eight chance of ever making the pass. After four laps, it's one in forty. That data is from the longer circuit layout used last year, so it may be diluted on the shorter track this year, but the trend will remain the same: make the pass early if you have the speed, or watch the leaders disappear into the distance.
Do racing miles matter for co-drivers?
Brodie Kostecki's returning co-driver Todd Hazelwood was the highest-rated in last year's endurance events, and the pairing will again be strong. Not only do they have the familiarity of two years racing together, but Hazelwood comes in race fit, having raced a car of some description 19 times so far this year. That included a 200km race in the #17 Mustang in Darwin as a result of Kostecki’s illness.
Co-driver preparation always varies greatly. Some do very little racing in between; for others, it'd be easier to sleep in their helmets.
You won't find a starker contrast in preparation than between the two championship protagonists, Broc Feeney and Matt Payne. Payne's co-driver Will Davison has competed in 20 races across GT, TA2 Muscle Cars, Toyota 86s and production cars so far this year. Feeney's co-driver Nick Percat has zero recorded race starts (in a Natsoft-timed race meeting).
Does this matter? I'm not qualified to suggest one form of preparation is better than another, particularly when both are previous Bathurst winners. What I can tell you is that so much of your result is based on the co-driver's ability to be close to the main driver's pace. A co-driver who is 0.6 seconds per lap slower will bleed nearly 40 seconds across the 66-odd laps they'll likely do. That's why being in that 0.2–0.3 second zone typically yields great results.
A new place to lose positions
Running the shorter track this weekend is a positive in my eyes. The back section is fast and great to watch in qualifying, but it rarely added much value to the racing itself.
The cut-through section at Turn 6 will create a good passing opportunity as the cars brake from 235 to 75km/h. At the exit, it then tightens into Turn 7, meaning we'll likely see cars pushed into the dirt on the outside throughout the race. It looks similar to the last section at Symmons Plains, where drivers who try to hold on around the outside quickly find themselves losing more than the single position they'd have lost by conceding earlier.
Three or four pit stops?
There'll be some talk across the weekend about whether a four-stop strategy could work. Walkinshaw Andretti United tried it with Chaz Mostert last year without success, but if any one of tyre degradation, your co-driver's speed, or time lost in traffic greatly exceeds what's expected heading into the event, it becomes an option.
What we haven't seen for a while is a Safety Car in that super uncomfortable 'can we make it home' zone. Bathurst last year came close, but we're due one that lands right on the lap where it's a real stretch to make it home on fuel. You either sacrifice lap time to stretch the tank, or run flat out with the plan to pit again.
This year, 39% of races have featured a Safety Car, down from the Gen3 average of 47%. We’re statistically due one, and if it's in that awkward zone, it’ll certainly thicken the plot.
Two other storylines to follow
Watching the next generation go up against the current crop of championship drivers is always a highlight of the endurance races. All of the top seven in this year's DUNLOP Super2 Series are on the grid at The Bend, each trying to put their name in lights and their hand up highest for a seat in next year's main series.
The other big watch for the weekend will be the Toyotas of Chaz Mostert and Ryan Wood, both of whom need to finish without incident or risk being knocked out of the top 10. Their co-drivers will be competitive; here's hoping their cars’ reliability is equally strong.
Scott Sinclair is one of the most respected voices in pit lane, famously engineering James Courtney to the 2010 championship with Dick Johnson Racing. Sinclair also spent stints at the Holden Racing Team and Kelly Racing, spent time on the Supercars Commission, and recently joined Supercars as a data analyst.
The views in this article do not necessarily express the opinions of Supercars, teams or drivers.
