ADELAIDE LEADS TO MUTED END TO MURRAY’S ROOKIE SEASON

Cooper Murray’s rookie season has come to a quiet close on the streets of Adelaide after misfortune and unreliability kept him away from the top 10.

The weekend started well, with a sixth-place qualification that seemed sure to set up the Erebus driver for big points in the round’s opening race.

Cooper was strong in the wet, making up a place off the line and another by lap 3 to be running fourth, but he was tapped into a spin at turn 4 by Cam Waters, dumping him to the back of the field and leaving him 24th at the end of the red-flagged race.

Coop’s strong one-lap pace continued to Saturday, with sixth in qualifying earning him his first shootout since the Bathurst 1000, which he converted to ninth on the grid.

A solid start had him up one place on the first lap, but his Camaro’s race pace turned the race into a slog. An early first stop, on lap 6, did nothing for his prospects, and a long final stint left him fighting a losing battle with drivers on fresher rubber that demoted him to 16th at the chequered flag.

A triple top-10 qualifying result was on the cards on Sunday morning until his rear-left wheel released itself from his Erebus car as he tackled the fearsome and high-speed turn 8. He prevented a massive crash with a mighty save, but his session was over. He had been in top spot on the time sheet before the incident, but he was condemned to a 25th-place start. His race was always going to be difficult from the back, but he was nonetheless up to a strong 14th place on lap 28 when his afternoon was undone by a lunge from James Courtney that ended up with his front assembly hanging off the chassis.

An unscheduled stop and long repairs meant there would be no joy for him for the rest of the afternoon, and he finished five laps down in 25th place in a muted end to a rookie campaign that had been building momentum.

Cooper ended his first Supercars season 18th on the title table and only 55 points behind experienced Erebus teammate Jack Le Brocq.

His Erebus squad finished ninth in the teams championship.

“Not how would have liked to wrap up our 2025 season, unfortunately. We start the weekend off well, qualifying sixth in race 1 but unfortunately got taken out, which resulted in a 23rd- position finish in the wet. On Saturday we got into the shootout, which was really cool. I got up to eighth in the race but unfortunately had no race pace or tyre life, so I fell back to 16th, which is where we finished Saturday’s 250 kilometres. On Sunday it all started in qualifying. We were going really well, P1 on the time sheet, before the wheel nut fell off going through turn 8, which was very scary. I managed to keep it out of the wall, but unfortunately that put us out of qualifying, and we lost our fastest time, so we had to start from last. In the race we were making up some positions. Our car pace was really good. But unfortunately I was involved in another driver going way too deep into a corner and taking my front bar off. It’s not the way we would have like to have ended our 2025 rookie season, but there were a lot of positives and a lot of momentum and a good building base of 2026.”