Trackside report: 2024 Bathurst 500

The 2024 Bathurst 500 event was held on 23-25 February at the iconic Mount Panorama racetrack, Bathurst.

Ella Dingwall was there - here’s her trackside report.

It was the start of a new era for the V8 Supercars in 2024, with major upgrades to the Gen 3 Ford Mustangs, which meant expectations and hopes of what could be achieved this season were high. You could definitely say Optus Ambassador Chaz Mostert lived up to those expectations and delivered an absolutely stellar weekend for the Walkinshaw Andretti United (WAU) team.

As the first day of the 2024 season rolled around, all thoughts were to who would come out on top. It was clear that the Triple Eight cars were a force to be reckoned with, both showing a blistering pace throughout all sessions over the weekend. For the WAU boys, it was a slow start to the weekend, however as the weekend progressed and the cars were tweaked to fit each driver, the lap times quickly started to come together with Chaz putting his Ford on the second row in P3, and Ryan Wood dropping from 8^th to 14^th after failing to slow during the yellow flags when Matt Payne went off the track into the wall at the final corner.

After narrowly avoiding being sandwiched between the two Triple eight cars at the first corner in Race 1, Chaz drove a brilliant race showing off the new upgrades brought to the Fords for the 2024 season. Along with all the chaos that the first corner brings, it also brought the end of Ryan Wood’s Supercars Debut race, being pushed into the wall resulting in a steering issue, forcing him to retire. Fortunately for Chaz there were no issues impacting his race and he crossed the finish line in third, starting the year off strong with some silverware, and of course the iconic and much celebrated shoey.

The final day of the Thrifty Bathurst 500 came quick and fast, with Chaz once again showing blistering pace, getting through to the top 10 shootout for the second time that weekend, and further improving his time putting him on the front row in second for the start of Race 2. Rookie Ryan Wood just missed out on the top 10 by 10 hundredths of a second, leaving him to start the last race of the weekend in 11^th. Unfortunately, Ryan was again forced to retire his car with another steering issue leaving him in a tough spot, but with hope leading into the second round in Melbourne.

Chaz led race two for a period, but unfortunately dropped down the race order after his pitstop left him without a full set up of new tyres. He eventually ran out of laps to catch the eventual race two winner Will Brown, but admirably Chaz managed to bring the Mustang home in second, for his second podium of the weekend.

After a long weekend of racing, it’s clear to see the massive amounts of work and improvement that have gone into both cars over the season break. With expectations high and a lot of races to go, I’m sure the WAU team will continue to improve and hopefully get that all important win we’ve been waiting for.

Read Ella’s previous report of the Bathurst 1000 race.

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Ella Dingwall is a high school student with dreams of becoming a motorsport journalist.