At the completion of 161 laps at Mount Panorama it was Supercars Championship leader Shane van Gisbergen who prevailed over defending Bathurst 1000 winner Chaz Mostert.

The Holden pair gained a small break over the rest of the field when the race restarted for a 15-lap sprint to the line, with each driver committing minor errors as they pushed their cars to the limit.

In the end, van Gisbergen held on to win his second Bathurst 1000 (following 2020) while his co-driver Garth Tander claimed his fifth taste of victory in the October classic (2000, 2009, 2011, 2020).

The win van Gisbergen's 19th success of the year, setting a new record for Supercars Championship victories in a single season.

Van Gisbergen said it's a great feeling to give Commodore a fond farewell at the Bathurst 1000.

"It was a big day. It was great to have the fans here and share the farewell to Holden with them," he said.

"This week I learnt a lot about how much the brand means to people. To represent like we do, it's a privilege to add to the tally of wins for Holden."

It continues a special month for van Gisbergen after he recently scored a class podium finish in his World Rally Championship attempt in New Zealand.

Van Gisbergen said the extra time behind the wheel has been of great benefit.

"Right from Thursday I felt on in the car. Driving so much, it keeps you so much sharper, I think. When I don't drive for a few weeks and I jump back into the car everything happens very fast," he said.

"As a team we've done such a good job this season. We've not been the best in qualifying, and not the fastest car, but in race's we've been able to execute.

"Andrew [Edwards, race engineer] this year has been fantastic. The way he tunes the car up and goes about things is fantastic, along with the rest of the engineering group. I think we're in a pretty special place."

Sunday's race started out in chaotic fashion, as a pair of major incidents wiped four cars out of the event within six laps, but as the track started to dry and the conditions improved it was van Gisbergen and Tander who started to assert themselves.

However, the Red Bull Racing duo had to overcome several obstacles to get to that point.

Van Gisbergen started the race in seventh after being handed a three-spot grid penalty for causing a crash in Friday's qualifying and the troubles continued when the team were slapped with a five second penalty for an unsafe release from pit lane.

When van Gisbergen was finally able to serve that penalty on lap 56 he found himself down in 18^th place.

A stroke of luck came the team's way when a safety car on the next lap brought the majority of the field into pit lane, which catapulted the #97 Red Bull entry into the race lead.

Tander and van Gisbergen then produced excellent stints to get their car out to almost a 20 second lead.

That lead evaporated on lap 118 when Todd Hazlewood buried his car in the tyre wall at turn two, bringing out the safety car and packing the field back together.

On the race restart van Gisbergen started to build a small break over the pack as Brodie Kostecki tried his best to hold off Mostert in the fight for second while Cam Waters overtook Broc Feeney to go fourth.

The field were once again brought back together with 20 laps to go when Will Davison crashed in an identical spot to Hazlewood while on cold tyres.

Mostert had jumped Kostecki into second place before the incident, and after the restart with 15 laps to go Waters bumped the Erebus Motorsport driver down to fourth place thanks to his overtake up Mountain Straight.

Waters tried his best to make it a race of three to the finish line but he and his Tickford Racing Mustang began to lose valuable seconds to the leading Holden pair.

Van Gisbergen posted back-to-back fastest laps of the race with 11 and 10 laps to go.

As he threatened to leave Mostert in his wake the Walkinshaw Andretti United driver showed the grit that took him to a Bathurst 1000 crown the previous year.

Mostert was continually quicker than van Gisbergen across the top of Mount Panorama but the championship leader continued to have the better pace over the first and third sectors of the track.

With eight laps remaining Mostert lost valuable tenths to van Gisbergen when the rear of his car slid out at Hell Corner.

On the penultimate lap van Gisbergen had a brief loss of grip on Forrests Elbow but no damage was done to his one second margin over Mostert, which he would maintain for the remainder of the race.

Mostert would have to settle for second, along with co-driver Fabian Coulthard, while pole-sitter Waters and co-driver James Moffat claimed the remaining spot on the podium.

Kostecki and David Russell finished fourth while Feeney and Jamie Whincup rounded out the top five.