Kiwi Supercars great Greg Murphy admits he's given up hope of driving at this year's Bathurst 1000.
Coming out of retirement, the four-time winner of the iconic race had entered as a wildcard - with fellow Kiwi Richie Stanaway - for the Boost Mobile Erebus Racing team to make his first start at 'The Great Race' since 2014.
But Murphy's inability to secure a Managed Isolation Quarantine (MIQ) voucher to return to New Zealand after the December 5 race has all but ruled out any possibility he'll feature at Mount Panorama.
Barring any unlikely late change in border policy, Murphy doesn't foresee himself boarding the plane to Australia on Sunday, as was originally planned.
"We're out, I think," Murphy tells Newshub. "Unless there's going to be some announcement today or tomorrow, we've run out of time.
"You get to a point where you're so compromised that its not going to be worth it, because you're just not going to be prepared at the level you need to be.
"We're already compromised now, not being able to travel over the last 2-3 months to actually do the prep that was part of the plan. That was all put on the backburner and now we're squeezing everything into a period.
"If we can't get on [the plane] knowing we can get back into New Zealand within a decent time frame, we can't reduce that [prep] time anymore, because we're not going to achieve what we set out to achieve."
Although Murphy's team were lucky enough to clinch an MIQ spot for December 22, he says a date that late "just makes it not worth going".
In the grand scheme of border entry quandaries, Murphy insists his ranks towards the bottom, but can't deny the frustrations of his fraught experience with the infamous booking lottery.
"We're caught up in the same situation as plenty of Kiwis and my plight is certainly nowhere near as important as some people's," he notes. "But it's just incredibly frustrating and it's causing all of us real mental anxiety.
"I can only imagine what it's been like for people who have been stuck in the wrong places, not able to get back to New Zealand for months. I don't know how they're dealing with it.
"I've been struggling a bit with all this uncertainty and all the ongoing hope... the weeding of small pieces of information that give you hope and then it's taken away.
"It's been very challenging, but for what we're trying to do - go and race at Bathurst - it doesn't compare to a lot of people's other situations."
Murphy confirms he and his team haven't applied for an exemption, after they were informed by Sport NZ - via Motorsport NZ - there was no chance one would be granted.
"We don't want special treatment, but it highlights the need for this Government to get their shit together and actually make the changes that are required," Murphy states.
Join us on December 5 for live updates of the Bathurst 1000
