Tim Blanchard has officially confirmed he will partner Tim Slade in the 2022 Bathurst 1000.

Team owner Blanchard and lead driver Slade combined for ninth place in last year’s Great Race, as their #3 CoolDrive Mustang took a liking to the Mount Panorama layout (having qualified on the front-row at the Mount Panorama 500 earlier that season).

Blanchard had left the door open for the possibility he could step aside if a better co-driving option was secured, but his 12th start in the 1000 is now beyond doubt.

“I’ll do Bathurst again this year with Sladey,” he told Speedcafe.com.

“We had a pretty good run last year, we kind of faded at the end of the day, but we were pretty competitive all weekend so looking forward to going back there.

“The car works really well around there so hopefully we can have a good crack at it this year.”

Blanchard becomes the 47th driver to be locked in for the headline act of the October 6-9 event.

Pending the addition of any further wildcards beyond that of Boost Mobile/Erebus Motorsport (confirmed) and Triple Eight Race Engineering (expected), 27 cars and thus 54 drivers are set to line up.

Recent confirmations from the Shell V-Power Racing Team, Grove Racing and now BRT mean they join Tickford Racing, Walkinshaw Andretti United and Erebus Motorsport in having full rosters.

Triple Eight, Brad Jones Racing, and Team 18 all effectively have one driver still to announce, although the latter is openly anticipated to be James Golding.

With Jamie Whincup, Garth Tander and Craig Lowndes all considered a given to co-drive for Triple Eight, the main question mark continues to be the identity of the team’s other wildcard driver. Super2 drivers Declan Fraser and Cameron Hill are thought to be the favourites.

Matt Stone Racing and PremiAir Racing both have two openings still to fill.

2022 Bathurst 1000 co-drivers

*All but confirmed