Five months out from the 2026 Repco Bathurst 1000 and the Supercars Enduro Cup co-driver field is all but set, with the V8 Sleuth and Speedcafe registers showing 21 of the 24 expected pairings now confirmed and only Brad Jones Racing's three entries still officially open.
The headline name is one of the most familiar in Supercars history: Craig Lowndes returns to a full Bathurst 1000 line-up, this time as the lead driver of a two-car Supercheap Auto Wildcard at Team 18. The 14-time Mount Panorama winner will share the Chevrolet Camaro with a yet-to-be-named young rookie selected by the Scott Pye-owned operation, with Team 18 confirming the program will run for both 2026 and 2027 and cover the Sandown 500, the Bend 500 and Bathurst itself.
"It's an incredible honour to welcome Craig Lowndes and Supercheap Auto to Team 18," team owner Charlie Schwerkolt said. "We'll be throwing everything at this program to ensure it's competitive from day one."
Lowndes, who steps back into a full enduro program three years after his last Bathurst start, said the move was a logical fit. "It's an exciting time ahead," he said. "Joining Team 18 was the right move for me being the new homologation team."
The rest of the field follows broadly familiar lines but with several new faces and big-name retirements reshaping pairings. Walkinshaw TWG keeps the Chaz Mostert-Fabian Coulthard combination intact and pairs Ryan Wood with New Zealander Jaxon Evans, while Triple Eight has split its 2025 enduro winners and locked in Nick Percat with Broc Feeney and Will Brown with Scott Pye. Erebus Motorsport gives Cooper Murray Lochie Dalton in the Camaro after Jobe Stewart was confirmed alongside Jarrod Hughes, and Tickford keeps Cam Waters with five-time Bathurst winner Mark Winterbottom in the Mustang.
Matt Stone Racing's pre-season announcement that Aaron Seton would join Zach Bates remains one of the year's notable storylines, with the third-generation Seton lining up at Bathurst in his first full Supercars enduro start and Bates - the 2025 Super2 champion and 2026 Bathurst 12 Hour podium getter - making his Mount Panorama main-game debut.
Dick Johnson Racing has Brodie Kostecki paired with Todd Hazelwood and Rylan Gray with Tony D'Alberto, while Grove Racing has gone all-in on local talent with Matt Payne-Will Davison and Kai Allen-Tim Slade. PremiAir Racing's Jayden Ojeda is paired with David Russell while Declan Fraser gets Nash Morris, and Blanchard Racing keeps Aaron Cameron-Zak Best together with James Golding-Richie Stanaway. Objective Racing's single entry pairs Jackson Walls with Jack Perkins.
The biggest gap on the chart is Brad Jones Racing, with co-drivers for Andre Heimgartner, Cameron Hill and Macauley Jones still listed TBA. Bryce Fullwood, Brad Vaughan and Jordan Boys are the names doing the rounds in paddock chatter.
Two retirements changed the shape of the silly season. Both Jamie Whincup and Garth Tander have stepped away from full-time enduro driving for 2026, leaving Triple Eight's traditional pairings open for the reshuffle that landed Pye and Percat back in the squad's cars. Lowndes' Supercheap return - paired with a young driver Team 18 has yet to publicly name - has filled what would otherwise have been one of the most discussed empty seats on the grid.
The Repco Bathurst 1000 runs October 8-11, with the AirTouch 500 at the Bend on September 11-13 the previous endurance round. With the homologation focus on Team 18's GM hub set to define the technical narrative, and Lowndes' return giving the field its highest-profile wildcard in years, the 2026 enduros now have a competitive shape worthy of the Mount Panorama spotlight.
