Sunday Talking Points: Adelaide title decider confirmed, advantage Brown
The 2024 Repco Supercars Championship is set to boil down to an all-Triple Eight title fight in Adelaide after a dramatic Sunday at the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500.
Whilst Brodie Kostecki continued his and Erebus Motorsport's late-season surge with a dominant victory, whilst Will Brown and Broc Feeney both claimed podiums to drastically improve their Gold Coast records.
Whilst the Red Bulls have ensured the Banyo operation will claim both teams and drivers crowns this year, there was more heartbreak for Chaz Mostert, who will have to wait another year for his chance at a Supercars crown.
Supercars.com takes a look at some of the key talking points from Sunday at the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500.
And then there were two
Four drivers entered the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500 with a mathematical chance of claiming the 2024 Repco Supercars Championship. That has now been whittled down to two, and rather fittingly, it will be an all-Red Bull Ampol Racing title showdown as Will Brown takes a 180-point lead over Broc Feeney into the VAILO Adelaide 500 in three weeks' time. Despite all of the questions surrounding their Surfers Paradise track records in recent years, both Brown and Feeney stood up when it mattered most, with Feeney gaining 24 points on Brown over the course of the weekend. Though both Chaz Mostert and Cam Waters will have to wait another year for their shot at championship glory, though it wasn't for a lack of trying. Waters was supreme all weekend in his Monster Energy Mustang, but always needed a lot of luck to go his way having entered the weekend 464 points behind Brown. Waters threw everything he could at Surfers Paradise today, he could only muster fourth behind the Red Bulls.
More championship heartbreak for Mostert
For Chaz Mostert, what has perhaps been his best chance to claim a long-awaited maiden Repco Supercars Championship all came undone today with a disastrous refuelling blunder in his final scheduled stop. Having dropped behind Broc Feeney after a disappointing enduro campaign, Mostert needed a big weekend on the Gold Coast to re-establish his title hopes, however today's problems were the final nail in the coffin after his gear position sensor failure yesterday. Results of 10th and 11th continued a recent lean period for Mostert and Walkinshaw Andretti United, who had roared into contention off the back of a blistering run of form mid-year. However, costly mistakes at crucial moments by WAU have been punished by the ruthlessly clinical Triple Eight, who will sweep both drivers and teams championships this year. This has arguably been Mostert's strongest title challenge since his curtailed 2015 season at Prodrive Racing Australia (now Tickford), having been a shining light for Ford all season in the Optus Mustang. With WAU now having the extra challenge of preparing Toyota's 2026 entry throughout next season, will this year prove to be Mostert's best chance at claiming a championship title?
The Erebus of old continues to shine
The Brodie Kostecki/Erebus Motorsport partnership continued to thunder along at it's brilliant best today in Surfers Paradise, with the reigning champion once again untouchable this afternoon. A brilliant lap in the Boost Mobile Top Ten Shootout set up Kostecki's day, putting three tenths on Will Brown in second in an ominous performance. He then controlled the race from the front for all 85 laps to put together his second win in three races, and continue to play a spoiler role in the title race. This weekend saw a more relaxed and jovial Kostecki outside of the car, and the environment at the team has no doubt been boosted by a Bathurst win and now the addition of a Gold Coast surfboard. There is one more round left in the partnership at Adelaide, fittingly where both team and driver were crowned champions last season, and there's no reason why they can't add another trophy or two before the season is out. Cooper Murray was an interested spectator in the garage this weekend, and will no doubt be eager to jump into an in-form team for 2025.
A near-perfect weekend
After all 24 cars finished on Saturday with no major incidents to speak of, today's race on the Gold Coast started in dramatic style. Breaker Street looked more like a carpark that a race circuit on the opening lap when Anton De Pasquale pushed Ryan Wood into the tyre wall at turn eleven, triggering mayhem behind that saw everyone from 10th on back either damaged or stopped waiting for a gap to open up. Despite a line of seven cars all parked nose to tail into each other, De Pasquale was the only retirement to come out of the accident after looping around into the inside concrete wall. Remarkably, the #11 Shell V-Power Mustang remained the only retirement of the day, which just about summed up Dick Johnson Racing's miserable weekend. The lap one incident also triggered the only Safety Car period of the weekend, despite chaos unfolding throughout all of the support categories. Another odd footnote to come from the incident was the pace of Nick Percat, who despite needing to have a spare front bar borrowed from teammate Cameron Hill held on with plenty of race tape, set a new lap record as the only driver to set a 1m 10s lap during the race.
Tight points battles to keep an eye on in Adelaide
Outside of the fight for the 2024 Repco Supercars Championship, there are plenty of tight points battles to keep an eye on as the season reaches it's conclusion at the VAILO Adelaide 500. In the fight for fifth, Matt Payne leads James Golding by just 22 points, with Thomas Randle 71 points behind in seventh. There is also a four-way fight for eighth, with Nick Percat, Will Davison, Andre Heimgartner, and Anton De Pasquale all separated by 89 points. In the teams championship the fight for fifth is also incredibly close, with Dick Johnson Racing, Erebus Motorsport, and Matt Stone Racing covered by just 33 points heading into the final two races of the season. It's not only in the Repco Supercars Championship that there are points battles to keep an eye on, as the Dunlop Super2 Series is set for a final round for the ages, with series leader Zach Bates, Aaron Cameron, and reigning champion Kai Allen covered by just 42 points with 300 on the line.
