Kostecki takes his first victory with Dick Johnson

Brodie Kostecki has taken Dick Johnson Racing back to the winners’ circle after two winless years, taking victory in the Supercars opener on the streets of Townsville in Far North Queensland.

Kostecki, who took his 16th career pole and his first since moving to DJR at the start of the season, beat Tickford Racing’s Cam Waters away at the start and was never headed.

But he was chased hard by Waters, who cut what had been a 3.8s deficit to Kostecki in half with a strong pitstop from the Tickford Racing team. But Kostecki rebuilt his lead and sped home to a 4.31s victory.

“I had Cam breathing down my back for the whole race so I knew I could not make any mistakes,” said the 2023 Supercars champion after his second podium finish of the season and ninth career win.

“Not great starts so far this year but we got that sorted out. To get the launch and control the race was great, it was a fast pace and this guy [Waters] was pushing 24/7.”

“A pretty good race, but we didn’t have the pace for Brodie and his team,” said Waters after his 11th podium in Townsville. “[I am lacking] a bit of tyre life in certain areas, my car is not quite good enough.”

Former DJR driver Anton De Pasquale took third place for Team 18, after aggressively gaining two places in the opening tours of the 35-lap race distance to finish on the podium for the second race weekend in succession.

“A sprint race around here means you are not looking after the tyres as much as you might,” he said.

“You have to get it done early, I had to use [the tyre] as much as I could and use the strategy a bit. The car was good but it’s not perfect every day.”

Matt Payne took a strong fourth place in the Grove Racing Ford, ahead of Bryce Fullwood, who moved up from eighth on the grid in the Brad Jones Racing Chevrolet, and Chaz Mostert, from ninth in Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Ford.

It was a challenging day for the Triple Eight drivers. Both Broc Feeney and Will Brown qualified outside the top 10, Feeney in 14th and Brown in 20th, the latter after tearing his rear wing off with a light crash at the end of the opening practice session. From there, both drivers fought hard to regain positions, Feeney finishing eighth and Brown gaining 10 places to make it home in 10th.

As a result of the dramas at Triple Eight, Feeney saw the 183-point lead he brought to Townsville stay the same, but by finishing ahead of Brown, Payne has moved into second place. Feeney has 1519 points from Payne on 1336, with Brown now third on 1331.

The Supercars and drivers will return to the Townsville tarmac on Saturday at 10:00am AET, for qualifying ahead of the 21st race of the championship due to start at 3:00pm local time.

Supercars Townsville – Race 1 results