Kostecki beats Randle in Super2 thriller

Eggleston Motorsport's Brodie Kostecki has pipped Thomas Randle to claim a come-from-behind victory in the opening Dunlop Super2 Series race at the Superloop Adelaide 500.

Kostecki started on the front-row alongside polesitter Randle and found himself chasing down the Nissan driver for much of the race before making his move on lap 17 of 19.

Now in his fourth Super2 season and first with Eggleston, Kostecki eased clear of Randle for the remaining two laps and ultimately finished 2.6615 seconds clear.

MW Motorsport's Randle, who had earlier claimed the first ARMOR ALL Pole Position of the year, almost jumped the start before settling into a groove as Kostecki battled with Will Brown for second.

Kostecki eventually forced his way by at Turn 9 on lap 3 – also the site of his move for the race lead when Randle ran slightly deep.

Randle had edged away to a comfortable lead by that point, but Kostecki pegged that margin back to less than a second by the halfway point and even broke the lap record in the process.

The Nissan driver appeared to have the win in the bag after blunting Kostecki’s advances, until his costly lock-up.

Brown ran a relatively quiet race to third on his Image Racing debut, ahead of Kurt Kostecki, who won a hard-fought battle with Jordan Boys for fourth with a sublime pass into Turn 6.

As racing got underway in Adelaide, Brown got a clean getaway, moving from fourth to second by the first turn, edging by Brodie Kostecki and third-place rookie starter Zak Best.

Kostecki only fell to third, but it was MWM recruit Best who lost out most, dropping all the way down to seventh and eventually finishing eighth.

Jack Perkins started from sixth and was up into fourth – surviving contact with the Turn 8 wall – before banging doors with Boys on lap 6, dropping the Eggleston driver to seventh.

Perkins gained one position from there and finished ahead of Matt Chahda in a career-best seventh, Best in eighth, and rookies Jayden Ojeda and Broc Feeney, who rounded out the top 10.

The second leg will take place tomorrow at 2:05pm local time.