{"id":337257,"date":"2023-10-08T13:50:50","date_gmt":"2023-10-08T13:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=337257"},"modified":"2023-10-08T15:01:04","modified_gmt":"2023-10-08T15:01:04","slug":"bathurst-winners-resurgence-from-sad-state-of-affairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=337257","title":{"rendered":"Bathurst winner's resurgence from 'sad state of affairs'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four years ago, Richie Stanaway had resigned himself to retirement.<\/p>\n

The Kiwi was once a prodigious talent whose superb junior career nearly took him all the way to the top.<\/p>\n

He beat one of Michael Schumacher's<\/a> records along the way, but when he broke his back in an airborne crash and the door slammed shut on Formula 1<\/a> he turned his attention closer to home.<\/p>\n

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\"Richie<\/p>\n

Supercars<\/a> and the Bathurst 1000<\/a> had always been on his radar \u2013 and when the opportunity came calling in 2016 he pounced on it.<\/p>\n

By 2017, he was a Sandown 500 winner and in 2018 he was full-time in Supercars. The expectation was that he could be a regular race winner.<\/p>\n

Two tumultuous years split between Tickford Racing and Garry Rogers Motorsport followed, fraught with poor results and talk of attitude issues.<\/p>\n

Stanaway fell out of love with the sport. So he quit. He vanished from the public eye and wouldn't be seen near a race track for nearly two years.<\/p>\n

The turning point came in 2021 when one of his biggest supporters, Peter Adderton of Boost Mobile, convinced him to make a comeback with compatriot and Bathurst 1000 legend Greg Murphy.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> SVG ends 23-year drought with Bathurst 1000 win\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> 'It's fabulous': Third-generation star making waves<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\ufeffREAD MORE:<\/strong> Racing prodigy reduced to tears after 'disaster' failure<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Richie<\/p>\n

Stanaway was sold on the idea by Adderton, who said Murphy had committed to the project \u2013 not knowing that Adderton hadn't even spoken to the four-time Great Race winner at that point.<\/p>\n

The COVID-19 pandemic ultimately scuppered their campaign in 2021 but in 2022 they made their triumphant return, finishing 11th in the Bathurst 1000.<\/p>\n

After Garth Tander left to join Grove Racing, Shane van Gisbergen shoulder-tapped Stanaway to join him in this year's race at Triple Eight Race Engineering.<\/p>\n

The three-time Supercars champion made no secret of the fact he wanted to see Stanaway back in the series full-time.<\/p>\n

\"Richie<\/p>\n

Stanaway returned in 2023 fitter than ever, physically and mentally. Now he's got a full-time deal signed for 2024 and can call himself a Bathurst 1000 winner.<\/p>\n

He admits it almost never happened, having grown content with the sport no longer being part of his life.<\/p>\n

"I definitely felt like I made the right decision at the time. I wasn't regretting it and I was enjoying my time away actually," said Stanaway.<\/p>\n

"I had enough time between stopping racing and the wildcard opportunity to just be open to the idea of coming back and then it kind of just progressed from there really.<\/p>\n

\"Whincup<\/p>\n

"Doing the wildcard last year\u2026 I was still very unsure if I was just gonna come back to co-drive and be around a little bit, but not full-time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"Then as the year progressed, I got more and more certain that I wanted to come back racing full-time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"The confidence was pretty low after 2018 and 2019. I felt like I'd forgotten how to drive basically.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"Now joining a great team like this and it's just given me a huge boost in my confidence again.<\/p>\n

\"Shane<\/p>\n

"It helped a lot, driving with both of them," he said of Murphy and van Gisbergen.<\/p>\n

"Two of the most iconic drives from New Zealand. To drive with Greg last year \u2013 I needed that inspiration to come back. Same again this year driving with Shane.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"It's just inspired me to get the most out of myself and come back and do things properly."<\/p>\n

Stanaway arrived in Supercars with plenty of fanfare given his remarkable rise through the ranks that saw him win several Formula 2 races, including one at the Monaco Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

His first stint in Supercars saw attitudes quickly change. Results were poor and the Kiwi grew frustrated \u2013 famously drifting the car in protest in one race.<\/p>\n

\"Shane<\/p>\n

Stanaway's initial exit from the sport drew mixed reviews. Plenty of social media commentary pinned the blame on the driver rather than the two teams.<\/p>\n

Years after the fact, some came out in defence of Stanaway with a central theme being the environment not suiting the ex-Formula 1 simulator driver.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Murphy was one of those vocal advocates of Stanaway.<\/p>\n

The Kiwi racing legend couldn't help but well up seeing his true potential realised at Mount Panorama.<\/p>\n

"That makes me emotional seeing him like that because he's not that kind of guy. He's a bit of an introvert. I love seeing the emotion. I'm so proud," said Murphy.<\/p>\n

\"Richie<\/p>\n

"It's more than motorsport. It's his life. It's created a new pathway for him, a new vision, new thinking. It's turned him around.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"It was in a pretty sad state of affairs when the sport really just pushed him away and said, 'We don't care'. Dumped him on the side and carried on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"Here he was struggling \u2013 it's more about the person and the human and that whole mental side of things and the struggle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

"That's the achievement that he's shown here, it's just staggering."<\/p>\n

Stanaway will return to Supercars full-time in 2024 with Grove Racing where he'll join compatriot Matt Payne.<\/p>\n

Right now, he'll bathe in the sunlight of his greatest race yet.<\/p>\n

"It's a feeling I can't describe really," said Stanaway.<\/p>\n

"I remember being a young kid sitting in that grandstand right there, watching.<\/p>\n

"Winning this race has been a childhood dream of mine. To have it come true is such a surreal feeling. I can't describe it."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four years ago, Richie Stanaway had resigned himself to retirement. The Kiwi was once a prodigious talent whose superb junior career nearly took him all […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":337259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337257"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=337257"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":337271,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337257\/revisions\/337271"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/337259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=337257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=337257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=337257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}