Brodie Kostecki and Will Brown shared the wins in what was a hectic day of Supercars action at Queensland Raceway, near Ipswich in Queensland.
Kostecki won the opening race in Dick Johnson Racing’s Ford Mustang from Matt Payne (Kelly Racing Ford) and Will Brown (Triple Eight Ford) before a second, blockbuster of a race saw Brown put a full stop on his recent technical issues to take the win, his first in 12 months.
The races looked like a battle between points leader Payne, who took two pole positions, and Kostecki. The latter took three of Dunlop’s Soft tyres at his mandatory pit stop to the two of most of his rivals, and took the win by 2.16s, ahead of Payne. It was Kostecki’s first win at the team’s home track and his seventh this season.
In the second race, Kostecki followed the pattern of the first, covering the Kiwi’s pit stop a lap later. But this time, both took four tyres and Kostecki maintained the lead, until a safety car, and then another, stacked the field.
That left Kai Allen in the lead – but his Grove Racing Ford had taken two tyres at his pitstop, compared to four for everyone else. At the restart he was a sitting duck and Brown, ever the opportunist, jumped to the lead, and then withstood a challenge from Kostecki that saw the while Mustang on the dirt for a moment, letting Broc Feeney alongside to make it a Triple Eight 1-2 for a split second.
Kostecki ended up second in the race ahead of Feeney, Allen and Chaz Mostert (Walkinshaw TWG Racing Toyota Supra).
For Brown, who had a new car with a proper air restrictor for the first time in months, after his previous car was found to be fitted with a sub-standard part, the win was vindication.
“Give us the same equipment and see what happens!” he grinned. “It was elbows out, and that is what racing is all about. I was making it happen in that race no matter what. Right now, it really feels bigger than [winning] the championship, to be honest. To step up and get the win and the podium.”
Will Brown hasn’t won a race since 2025
Photo by: Edge Photographics
His former team-mate and good friend Kostecki was about as happy as he could have been with second place.
“It’s hard racing, that’s fine. I am thrilled for him, he has a big smile on his dial,” he said. “I was surprised that we could crawl back at the end, I got going again, I thought I might have a chance with Will, but he pushed me off and I had stuff all over my tyres.
“I got on the dirty part of the road when I was trying to pass Kai. That one is on me.”
Feeney put a tough couple of qualifying sessions behind him with the podium.
“Qualifying was pretty bad on our side, but I had a fast car then. Hopefully we will qualify a bit better tomorrow,” he shrugged.
“Apparently, I was clear of Brodie into [Turn] 4 but my mirror was down and I couldn’t see him! DJs and Grove are making us look pretty silly still, these guys are ridiculously fast.”
Behind Allen came Mostert, the two who were also in the wars in the first race. Allen running him wide to take the effective race lead after the pitstop cycle. As a result, Mostert dropped down the order to sixth and post-race, Allen was penalised five seconds, moving him to fifth place.
With his sixth place, Payne maintained his solid points lead but he did not quite clinch the Sprint Cup part of the season, which would have seeded him straight into the Supercars finals series.
The Supercars will return to the track on Sunday for a longer, 200km race.
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– The Autosport.com Team
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