Bathurst 1000 Debrief

Jayden Ojeda returned to Matt Stone Racing for this year’s Bathurst 1000, after re-signing with the team as a co-driver for a second year running, and what a race the 2022 version was to become.

Partnering with Todd Hazelwood in the #35 Truck Assist Racing Commodore, entered this year’s Bathurst 1000 with more main game experience than his previous great race starts, after competing as a wildcard at the Darwin Triple Crown, and Winton SuperSprint events earlier in the year.

“Wow, what a week. You always forget how big Bathurst is until you turn up on Tuesday and the fans are already setup in tent city, and it’s fully packed, and they are flying their flags. They had it really tough this weekend as well, the terrible weather conditions made it difficult to say the least, they had it all, but they didn’t miss a beat.” said Jayden.

Despite the terrible weather the attendance figures for the Repco Bathurst 1000 this year were still as strong as ever, with over a total of 195,578 people attended the four-day event, with over 7,000 campsites filled. Record TV and streaming records were also achieved this year.

Car 35 eventually finished the great race in position 20, unfortunately Todd made a mistake at turn two late in the race and found the wall, but the MSR team managed to get it going again, and they finished a few laps down.

“The practise sessions were really good, two were co-driver only sessions and I was 11th and 13th in both of those. One was wet and one dry, so we got a mixture of conditions. It was good to get a feeling for the car across all conditions before going into Sunday”. said Jayden.

“Into the race and I got to start, we started in position 19. The start of the race was pretty chaotic to say the least, those first six to seven laps I was just trying to stay out of trouble, which I managed to do pretty well, and made it through there avoiding damage. I was first or second car on the scene at the first incident up mountain straight and also then at the second incident near the chase as well.”

“But unfortunately, toward the end of my first stint of the race, we had a part failure on the front bar, which made the front aero of the car not work as it should, and meant we had an intense splitter vibration which heavily compromised the cars pace and drivability for the rest of the race.” he added.

“That then made the rest of the race tough, and we didn’t really have the pace to keep progressing forward. I think by the end of my first stint I was eleventh, I was sitting in behind Lowndes and Golding who are both primary drivers, so I was pretty happy to be where I was.”

“The car went from looking pretty good, then we basically had the whole front bar held on with tape from about 40-50 minutes into the race, and then whole race from there, but we got it to the finish.”

“I jumped in later in the race for a double stint which was probably the longest running we had, both stints were fully under green, so I really got to settle down into a nice rhythm and just punch out some consistent lap times and progresses further into the race.”

“Overall, it was a mega weekend, I’m really thankful to all my sponsors and partners, and the crew at MSR, it was an awesome weekend on their front, and something I really enjoyed and hope we can build on that and see what the future holds.”

“Personally, a good day on my end, I did everything I could and after a couple of rough previous runs at Bathurst and I’m glad to put a good weekend in the books.” said Jayden.

“Thank you to all my partners that helped get me on the grid for Bathurst 2022, I’m extremely grateful to have the people I have supporting me! Thank you to City Hino, Johnny H, Atkinson Pontifex, Nepean Regional Security, King’s Fibreglass, UMS (Urban Maintenance Systems), AJM Transport.”

Sunday’s Bathurst 1000 also broke records for the Foxtel Group, with more than 62.5 million minutes streamed. An average audience of 524,000 tuned in across Kayo Sports and Foxtel’s related streaming platforms. Seven’s coverage of the race averaged 1.36 million total viewers nationally, including 68,000 on 7plus.