Bathurst 1000 Hour 2: Murray surges wildcard forward
By Thomas Miles
Date posted: 13 October 2024
Todd Hazelwood has kept the #1 in P1 ahead of the Triple Eight Camaros, but it is the wildcard of Cooper Murray that raised the most eyebrows in hour 2 of the Bathurst 1000.
Murray’s stint driving in the Great Race has been a rapid one, helping the #888 he is sharing with Craig Lowndes to soar from 18th to fifth.
It is an impressive effort considering the first 54 laps of the 2024 Bathurst 1000 have not been interrupted by a Safety Car.
Hazelwood has built on the early advantage created by Brodie Kostecki with the Erebus crew enjoying a 5s lead over Whincup, while Pye is a further 20s adrift.
Thanks to the fast efforts of Jayden Ojeda and Murray, the top five are all Camaros with Dale Wood in the #26 waving the flag for Ford.
The commencement of the second hour also marked the first round of stops and driver changes.
On Lap 28 the leaders dived into the lane together with a shorter fuel stop ensuring Hazelwood was able to gain 4s on Whincup.
However, Whincup was one of the faster co-drivers out of the blocks and only took four laps to halve the gap to 3s.
The Brown/Pye car lost around 10s after a slow stop where the crew needed to find an extra left front to put on after the initial wheel would refuse to be applied.
Whilst the top four of Hazelwood, Whincup, Pye and Dale Wood were evenly split, the fight for fifth was fierce.
Holdsworth, Tander and D’Alberto were locked together, but the #19 fell out of the top 10 when the veteran locked up at Murrays Corner and needed the run off.
Ojeda and D’Alberto then both toured the outfield at The Chase and at the end of it all the #9 secured fifth place.
This moment allowed Moffat to split the pair as behind them were Allen and Murray, who had gained seven and eight spots respectively to climb into the 10.
Murray had the most pace to burn and picked off the four Mustangs ahead of him with ease to soar to sixth.
Fraser took a short burst of fuel in the opening series of stops to rise to fifth, but needed a refill and dropped down the order after only initially taking around 20L.
Reynolds was the only main driver to do a double stint off the bat, as Team 18 aimed to regain the ground lost from a battling opening stint.
“That flat spot happened on lap 1 so then I was scared shitless driving my car with the vibrations because you don’t know if it is going to let go or hold on,” Reynolds said.
“From there was I cruising around to get it to lap 15. Hopefully we can make some changes but it is going the difficult.”
To complete Chevrolet’s strong grip on the race, Ojeda displaced Dale Wood from fourth before Murray knocked the #26 out of the top five all together.
D’Alberto and Tander were the first in the top 10 to box for a second time on Lap 53, while a mistake from Whincup ensured Hazelwood enjoyed a touch more breathing space as the race carried on.
Image: Peter Norton
Bathurst 1000 hour 2 leaderboard
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