Murray was leading the Great Race with five laps remaining when an optimistic dive from James Golding at Griffins Bend sent the Erebus entry into a half-spin.
While Murray was able to keep his car off the wall, Matt Payne, David Reynolds and Golding all snuck through on the Chiko Camaro.
Murray ran fourth to the finish, with Golding’s superior speed in the closing stages enabled him to deny Erebus the final podium spot despite a five-second time penalty.
“Heartbreaking to be honest but I’ve pretty much got over it this quickly,” Murray told Speedcafe in the Erebus garage on Sunday evening.
“Betty told me to get over it, toughen up princess and move on.
“To finish fourth is awesome. If you told us that at the start of the weekend we would have taken it. Take the positives out of it and move forward.”
Murray affirmed that Golding came and apologised to him on Sunday evening in the Bathurst paddock, where the team garages were side-by-side.
“It’s racing. It’s always going to happen. It’s the Bathurst 1000, it’s the biggest race of the year,” Murray continued.
“If he didn’t have a crack, I would have been very surprised but unfortunately, I was on the wrong side of it.
“He’d come from the press conference and come straight here. He apologised for the incident, it’s never good. He won the race, but he didn’t win it, so he gets to suffer as much as I do.”
Murray said he was unsure how exactly he’d kept his car off the wall following the contact from Golding, surmising that “instincts took over”.
CONTACT CONTACT CONTACT 💥
MATT PAYNE TAKES THE LEAD!!!!!#RepcoSC #Supercars #Bathurst1000 pic.twitter.com/hF1B2dreQu
— Supercars (@supercars) October 12, 2025
The Chiko Camaro’s burst of pace on the late-race restarts that shot him to the front with 20 laps remaining was less of a mystery.
“We pumped the pressures up a little bit in that pit stop, that’s why I was struggling a lot at the end just trying to keep the tyre under it with the higher pressures,” he said.
“But it was nice and hooked for the restart, got to the lead and it was just about controlling it from there.”
Regardless of the result, Murray – who was brilliantly backed up by co-driver Jobe Stewart – was one of the stars of the Bathurst 1000 weekend.
He qualified fifth on Friday, set the sixth fastest time in Saturday’s Shootout and then nearly spearheaded a major upset in the race.
“I think the last four rounds we’ve been building a lot of confidence every round,” he said.
“We’re all working a lot better as a team, everyone is loving coming to the track and going racing, so we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing, and our day will come.”
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