Paired with regular Triple Eight Supercars team-mate Craig Lowndes and Finnish ace Toni Vilander steered the Maranello Motorsport Ferrari 488 home in what was Whincup’s debut GT3 sportscar appearance.

The win capped a perfect weekend for the Maranello Motorsport team after Vilander took pole position in Saturday qualifying.

“[It’s] a great day for us,” Whincup said. “It’s my debut in GT racing. Massive thank you to Maranello. Fantastic day, fantastic teamwork. I’m no lone ranger, it’s been an amazing team effort… I guess we had beginners luck today. First time, and to stand on the top step is a fantastic feeling.”

The win marked the reunion of a hugely successful Bathurst partnership between Whincup and Lowndes – they’ve scored a hat trick of Bathurst 1000 wins together – and only came after Whincup got the better of a fiery battle with Shane van Gisbergen, their fellow Triple Eight Holden Supercars team-mate.

Van Gisbergen was sharing the STM Mercedes GT3 with Maro Engel and Craig Baird.

While the Ferrari did enjoy a pace advantage, the Mercedes team was able to grab the lead at the final pitstops by opting not to change tyres.

From second place, Whincup was able to scrape past on Con-Rod straight despite van Gisbergen’s aggressive attempts to squeeze the Ferrari off the road.

Shortly after that, the New Zealander miscalculated while trying to lap Andrew MacPherson’s Porsche, which was consequently despatched into the wall by the Mercedes. Van Gisbergen was issued with a penalty but never got to serve it after losing control and crashing heavily on the run down to Forrest’s Elbow.

Van Gisbergen’s late-race misadventures prompted an angry response from team-mate Maro Engel. “All I’ve seen this week is a lot of mistakes from Shane,” he said.

“It was just a mistake,” said van Gisbergen. “I thought I got away without a drive-through (for the McPherson incident) and thought I could run with Jamie. I just stuffed up and put the car in the wall. I was pushing on the limit and sometimes over it; we were just so slow on the straight.”

On a day when virtually no one had a clean run throughout the 12 hours, the American Competition Motorsport Porsche driven by Mark Lieb, Patrick Long, David Calvert Jones and rising young Queenslander Matt Campbell finished an excellent second.

The result was a huge boost to Campbell’s burgeoning career and comes off the back of the news that he will be part of Triple Eight’s PIRTEK Enduro Cup squad later this year.

They edged the factory Bentley team, so that the British manufacturer claimed third place just as it had done the previous year.

In his first appearance at Bathurst, Bentley’s Oliver Jarvis said he had never been involved in such ‘brutal’ race as this before.

"Early on there were fancied cars crashing all over the place. We managed to keep it on the track; we didn’t quite have the pace of the Ferrari but we’ll take third.”

The attrition rate was high. Surprise pace setter and early leader Chaz Mostert’s BMW suffered gremlins, as did the lead factory car, while Russell Ingall crashed the sister BMW he was sharing with Mark Skaife, Tony Longhurst and Timo Glock. The factory Nissans had strong pace, but both GT-Rs lost many laps due to mechanical issues. The Audi challenge had virtually collapsed when both works-assisted Jamec-Pem cars suffered accident damage; one factory McLaren and BMW didn’t even take the start after crashing in the leadup to raceday.