Was The Bend the beginning of a Kostecki title charge?

Brodie Kostecki has sent out a timely reminder of why he's one of the top names in the Repco Supercars Championship.

Kostecki's brilliant victory alongside trusty co-driver Todd Hazelwood at the AirTouch 500 at The Bend on Sunday could not have been better timed with the maiden Finals Series right around the corner.

There have been glimpses of brilliance from the #38 Mustang throughout the season, notably with dual pole positions in Taupō and his crushing lights-to-flag win in the 100km Friday sprint in Townsville.

However, for Dick Johnson Racing, Kostecki, and Hazelwood to put together such a complete performance on Sunday was a big step in the team's rebuild, especially when you consider how ropey their lead-in was with power steering gremlins on Friday.

Supercars.com looked at how Kostecki has lifted his side of the garage in the lead-up to The Bend, and the team duly snagged their first '500' win since Paul Radisich and Steven Johnson won the Queensland 500 in 2001.

Arguably, it was the best the team has looked since the devastating DJR Team Penske/Scott McLaughlin era of 2017-2020, but the question is now whether or not he can emulate McLaughlin's feats and become a champion in Shell V-Power colours.

But what will it take for Kostecki to add another championship to his tally in 2025?

Why can he become 2025 champion?

His sublime victory at the AirTouch 500 at The Bend once again proved that when there is a big result on the table, few are as ruthless as Kostecki.

In scenes eerily reminiscent to last year's Repco Bathurst 1000, the 2023 champion was unerring as he fended off Cam Waters' charge, especially in the opening stage of the final stint home.

It was a reminder that should he find himself in a position to claim a vital race win during The Finals (which comes with an automatic berth to the next Finals round), anyone would be hard pressed to either hold off or get past the 27-year-old.

The circuits in The Finals have also been strong venues for Kostecki in years gone by, with his win on the Gold Coast on Sunday last year as dominant and as emphatic as they come.

He has also shown plenty of speed at Sandown, the venue where he got his first career podium on a rainy day in 2021, claiming a runner-up finish in 2023, and going luckless in last year's Sandown 500, though through no fault of his own.

Despite not having any headline results to show for it, his Adelaide record is also deceptively strong, sweeping both pole positions in 2023 on his crowning weekend, and finishing his Erebus tenure with dual top six finishes last year.

The new Finals Series comes as something of a saviour for the likes of Kostecki, whose 554-point deficit to current points leader Broc Feeney would see him out of any realistic title contention in any other season.

As we've come to learn since he first appeared on the Supercars grid in the 2019 enduros, chances are something that he will make the most of.

The challenges to overcome

The biggest hurdle for a Kostecki title charge could very well be the first one they face in the Elimination Final at the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500.

DJR have never finished a race inside the top 10 on the Gold Coast in the four races held since the Gen3 era began in 2023, with a best finish of 11th for Anton De Pasquale in the opening race last year.

Across four races, the team have an average finish of just 16.4, whilst De Pasquale was an opening lap retirement on Sunday last year in a pile-up at Turn 11.

If the team has another dismal run at Surfers Paradise, Kostecki's Finals run will likely come to a screeching halt, even if he claims the 25 bonus points as the Ryco Enduro Cup winner.

DJR's Gen3 record at Sandown is also patchy, with an average finish of 13.2 at Sandown. However, it's important to note that these results were recorded in 500km enduros, and that 2023 saw both Shell V-Power Mustangs finish inside the top eight.

Adelaide has been a stronger circuit for DJR however, with an average finish of 10.5, and Davison within reach of a Sunday podium to close out the 2024 season at last year's finale.

The final verdict

So, what does the man himself think of his title chances?

Speaking in the post-race press conference at The Bend on Sunday, Kostecki was quick to hose down any suggestions that he will be one of the key contenders come the end of the season.

"It's sort of a hard one to answer, I probably need to go to the next round and I'll be able to answer that question.

"So far to date, no. Not with all the other things going on outside of our control."

However, he was much more hopeful that The Bend could be the turning point in the long run: "I hope so, we've been a bit up and down this year. We've shown some good speed at times, but we haven't been able to package it all together.

"We've spent a lot of the year trying to learn this new car, and there's a lot of new people throughout this team as well, so I feel like we're getting better and better each round.

"Sometimes we might have a down round, but we learn a lot, we improve, and we come back and try and be better."

Whether or not Kostecki can emerge as a threat for the 2025 Repco Supercars Championship will all boil down to which of the two form lines mentioned above will be a more accurate representation of what occurs in the final three rounds.

If Kostecki can carry his personal Gold Coast, Sandown, and Adelaide form to the Finals Series, then there is every chance to believe he can make a run, especially with the known quantities of an Erebus-built chassis, and engineer George Commins at his disposal.

However, if DJR can't turn around their own form of the past two years, then it could be all over by Sunday at Surfers Paradise.

He will likely enter the Gold Coast as the fifth or sixth seed, and with the top seven progressing to the Semi Final at the Penrite Oil Sandown 500 in November, any slip-up could be extremely costly.

Perhaps our greatest indicator of whether or not Kostecki can challenge for this year's championship won't come until Practice 1 on the Gold Coast.

If he does come out swinging at Surfers Paradise, then discount him at your peril.

The views in this article do not necessarily express the opinions of Supercars, teams or drivers.