On the eve of the all-important endurance campaign, one driver has attempted to put the hitherto unpredictable championship battle into submission.
Brodie Kostecki put in a career-best weekend in Tailem Bend to blow away three key championship rivals just as the 2023 season hurtles into its decisive phase.
On a weekend three of four principal championship challengers faltered and fumbled, Kostecki was sparkling in his superiority. Composed in battle and serene with the lead, it won’t take many more weekends like this for the Erebus star to put one hand on the championship trophy.
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There’s a long way yet to go, but Kostecki will sleep easy ahead of Sandown knowing he’s on the right path.
HIT: BRODIE KOSTECKI’S CHAMPIONSHIP CAMPAIGN
This was the weekend Brodie Kostecki told the field, ‘Come and catch me’.
We’ve talked a lot about Kostecki’s almost uninterrupted run at the top of the standings being about consistency. Before this weekend he’d won only three times, but a streak of podiums and other lofty finishes have kept him in the fight.
But this weekend he landed his first big blow of the campaign, and it was a direct hit.
Two poles. Two fastest laps. Three victories.
It was his and the Erebus team’s first weekend sweep, and it was devastating.
Combined with imperfect weekends from his chief rivals, Kostecki’s championship advantage has more than trebled, from 41 points to a healthy 137.
Considering he was only days off a flight from Indianapolis, where he became the latest Supercars star to sample NASCAR, it was an impressive performance.
“It’s obviously pretty awesome,” he said. “We’ve had a fantastic year so far with our team going into this new era. A lot of hard work has gone into it — every team works hard — but we set out a plan at the end of last year and it’s all gone to plan.
“This weekend will be one of those that I’ll cherish forever.”
There are of course four rounds still to go, worth some 1200 points. Two of those are the big points paying endurance races in Sandown and Bathurst.
No team has yet fielded a Gen3 car in enduro trim, and even small mistakes exact large costs, so you’d be bold to make championship predictions before those behemoth weekends.
But it feels a lot like Kostecki is leaving Tailem Bend not just with an enhanced points lead but also as the title favourite.
MISS: WILL BROWN
It was pleasure and pain between the Erebus garages, with Will Brown thoroughly shaded by his title-leading teammate after a big off-track week for the 25-year-old.
Brown arrived at the Bend feeling confident. He’d just signed a deal to move to Triple Eight, and with his future sorted he was fully focused on going out on a high with Erebus by putting himself in the frame to deliver a title double.
Instead the weekend was a disaster.
He was tipped into a spin at the first turn on Saturday in a racing incident largely instigated by Jack Le Brocq. He retired from the race, a painful non-score.
A poor qualifying run left him 16th, from where he could gain only three places first thing Sunday to ship yet more points.
He then spun off the track all on his own in the final race of the round to finish a distant 15th.
From being 41 points off the lead as Kostecki’s closest challenger, he’s sunk to fourth and 258 point adrift, almost a full weekend’s score and a net loss of 217 points.
“It’s really disappointing. I’ve never been this far off my teammate before,” he told Fox Sports. “It’s a disappointing weekend for that to happen.
“The last race was really disappointing because it was completely my fault … but the rest of the weekend I was just way off.
“Obviously this weekend has really hurt [my title challenge]. It’s just a bit of a tough pill to swallow this weekend. I was just a long way off Brodie.”
He’ll need to regroup and target a super-clean run to the finish to rescue his campaign.
MISS: SHANE VAN GISBERGEN
He’s moved up to second in the championship standings, but that progress is Bradbury-esque, ending the round further adrift of Kostecki than he started, his 54-point deficit ballooning to 137 points.
The weekend again started with difficulty as early as in practice, when steering problems — despite running in an alternative chassis — again curtailed his running. The discomfort that has driven SVG from the series continues.
He rebounded well, but his ceiling was fifth, collecting three fifths in a row — though his third consecutive fifth place on Sunday night came despite a team penalty for being dropped from his pit stop with the right-rear wheel gun still attached.
With time ticking down on his final full-time Supercars campaign, SVG saw no cause for happiness on Sunday night despite becoming Kostecki’s closest rival.
“I can’t celebrate other people’s misfortunes,” he told Fox Sports.
“It’s a shame for Will, seeing his crash yesterday, but Brodie’s driving away from us. They’re fast, so we need to get better.”
MISS: BROC FEENEY
Broc Feeney completed a clean sweep of major title contenders to leave the Bend licking some major wounds.
The young Triple Eight star had had a frustratingly off-colour weekend in Sydney, punctuating what had been a generally smooth and consistent season to date, and he looked poised to bounce back after a pair of promising practice sessions.
But the weekend only got away from him from there. He was sixth, down from fourth, on Saturday. Sunday afternoon delivered him ninth, up from 12th on the grid.
But another lukewarm ninth place on Sunday evening was wrecked by heavy contact with David Reynolds, for which the Grove racer was penalised 15 seconds — cold comfort for Feeney, who finished last of 25 cars.
The net result is a lost 163 points to the title lead. At 228 points adrift, he’s closer to Chaz Mostert in fifth on the table than he is to Kostecki up top.
Feeney’s garage found the set-up window frustratingly difficult to triangulate after practice, and though he wasn’t miles off the pace for the rest of the weekend, it doesn’t take much to find yourself swamped in the pack.
Championship table, top four
Brodie Kostecki: 1895
Shane van Gisbergen: 1758 (137 points down, previously 54)
Broc Feeney: 1667 (228 points down, previously 65)
Will Brown: 1637 (258 points down, previously 41)
HIT: THOMAS RANDLE
If Thomas Randle had last year’s horror start-line crash on his mind upon his return to Tailem Bend, he didn’t show it, completing a superb and timely podium sweep for Tickford.
Randle was on the pace from the get-go, finishing first and then second in the dual practice sessions and then qualifying no lower than third for the weekend, including taking his maiden Supercars pole position for Sunday afternoon’s race.
He turned that career-high grid placement into a career-best finish of second. Combined with a pair of third places, he was the round’s most consistent driver behind the dominant Kostecki.
The result couldn’t have come at a better time for the 27-year-old 2020 Super2 champion, with rumours abounding that Tickford will shrink its garage from four cars to two next season.
Cam Waters is a guaranteed starter, but there is uncertainty around who would line up alongside him in a minimised line-up.
Randle had already been tipped as favourite, and though he remained tight-lipped after the race about his future, he’ll have done his odds of retention no disservice at all with a career-best weekend.
HIT: PARITY ADJUSTMENTS
While Kostecki swept the weekend for wins for General Motors, Ford was overrepresented on the podium, locking out the remaining six places over the weekend via Randle, Waters and Chaz Mostert.
That trend was evident in the finishing order across all three races, with Mustang drivers collecting 18 of 30 top-10 finishing positions — a 60 per cent strike rate for a marque that comprises 44 per cent of the grid.
After months of parity disputes, it’s difficult not to conclude that the Mustang was generally more competitive this weekend — promising too given the aerodynamically demanding nature of the international-style Bend circuit.
“It’s a fantastic result for Ford this weekend because it has been a very dry spell for them,” Tickford boss Tim Edwards said.
But he was careful not to read too much into the result.
“Every circuit has its different characteristics and this circuit appears to suit the Ford,” he said. I don’t 100 per cent now why. It’s a very low degradation circuit for tyres.
“We just have to go to Sandown and learn some more, but certainly we’re fairly confident there’re still issues.
“Obviously everyone knows there’s more work going on tomorrow to try to finetune it.”
More work will take place at Tailem Bend this weekend not only on the parity front but also for the persistent steering rack issues, one of Gen3’s biggest teething issues at this stage of the campaign.
But after several rounds of unclear progress, it looks as through the sport has taken a reasonable step forward with addressing parity concerns.