The Rarest Double: When Bathurst’s Pole-Sitters Actually Finish the Job

Bathurst has a funny way of making fools of favourites. Every October, the Top 10 Shootout is a run at fame and glory, but that’s it.

One sponsor once told me a few years ago that pole and leading into the first corner was more important than a win for coverage, which is just as well, given the pole winner rarely salutes on Sunday.

If Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood win today, they will join one of the sport’s most exclusive clubs, back-to-back winners from pole, and even just two-time winners from pole. One of those clubs has one member, the other has four.

In the past 20 years, the fastest man on Saturday (or Friday in 2022 when the Shootout was washed out) has only finished the job on Sunday four times. Garth Tander and Will Davison did it in 2009 for the Holden Racing Team, Scott McLaughlin and Alex Prémat pulled it off a decade later for DJR Team Penske in 2019, Chaz Mostert and Lee Holdsworth followed in 2021 with Walkinshaw Andretti United, and Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood joined the club in 2024 for Erebus Motorsport.

Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood celebrate their Bathurst victory with Erebus in 2024. Image: Peter Norton

That’s a conversion rate that reinforces the view that single lap speed doesn’t always equate on Sunday.

Admittedly, the percentages have increased recently, with those three from six, but this doesn’t alter the longer history.

Bathurst is not a place that rewards clean air, it rewards grit and the ability to be as good at the end of a fuel load as at the start. The race has never been about who’s quickest over a lap, but who can survive the chaos that follows. Safety cars, rain, safety cars again, and one bad tyre call can turn a hero into a has-been in seconds.

Pole might get you to Hell Corner first, but history says it rarely gets you to the finish line in front.

Still, there are a few who’ve managed to master both the stopwatch and the storm. Allan Moffat was the first to do it back-to-back, winning from pole in 1970 and 1971, two years when Ford ruled the mountain and Moffat looked untouchable.

Nearly a decade later, Peter Brock and Jim Richards repeated the feat in 1978 and 1979, turning Bathurst into their personal playground. Those are the only two occasions in history that anyone has gone pole-to-win in consecutive years, and they both came from eras when Bathurst’s toughest rivals were the mountain itself and mechanical mercy.

Mark Skaife is the only other driver to do it, but his were a decade apart and both with Jim Richards.

That is it: Moffat, Brock, Richards (four times to be the master of the pole-to-win club), and Skaife.

Four drivers across seven decades, all etched into Bathurst folklore for managing the near-impossible: dominating on Saturday, and backing it up on Sunday.

So when the Top 10 Shootout rolls around each year and someone sticks it on pole, the next day carries no guarantees. The stopwatch might win you headlines and keep sponsors happy with national TV coverage, but at Bathurst, the real story doesn’t start until the sun rises over The Cutting on race day.

Only the rarest of drivers have written their names across both days, can Kostecki and Hazelwood join the club? Only time will tell… come back at 6 pm.