Emotional Courtney brought to tears by historic podium

It might be James Courtney's farewell tour in the Repco Supercars Championship, but the 44-year-old proved that the old dogs can still have their day at the Bosch Power Tools Perth Super 440.

It has been a tough slog for Blanchard Racing Team throughout the Gen3 era, and the beginning to 2025 has been no exception with driver departures, engineering changes, and a lack of pace.

However, Perth has been something of an outlier for John and Tim Blanchard's operation, with Todd Hazelwood and James Courtney performing well at CARCO.com.au Raceway in 2023 and 2024 respectively.

Indeed, both Courtney and Aaron Cameron began the weekend strong on Friday, before fading back into the pack during Saturday's running, including a lap 1 collision in Race 14.

However, after qualifying an improved 13th, the 2010 champion ran long in the second tyre stint hoping to catch a Safety Car, which promptly arrived on lap 64 when Cooper Murray suffered an engine failure.

Courtney was able to vault from the fringes of the top 10 to fourth after what was an effective free pit stop, before he forced his way past Ryan Wood off the restart at Turn 6 to move into third.

The 15-time race winner was able to comfortably hold third and claim BRT's first ever podium in Supercars, with Courtney revealing that his emotions spilled over on the cool down lap.

"I'm not going to lie, I did cry on the in-lap," said an emotional Courtney.

"It's been a tough 18 months for these guys putting in so much work, and to be able to finally repay them with a result has been amazing.

"We had good, genuine speed on Friday, qualifying has been a struggle for us, but when you've got fresh air, the guys did an amazing job with the strategy, and to come out in third, yeah I was crying a bit in the car.

"I felt like Woody yesterday, but it's for different reasons."

Courtney revealed that he knew the Safety Car was an enormous opportunity to claim a shock podium with fresher tyres than those ahead, but was wary of former teammate Cam Waters behind.

"I was pretty excited, I knew we were going to have good tyres, and I was straight away to Chris [Fitzgerald], my engineer, asking what the tyre life was of everyone around me.

"Cam behind I was probably more concerned about because he only three laps different on the tyres, so I thought he was going to be a bit of a challenge.

"But on that restart there was a bit of hustle, I knew I had to get along otherwise Cam was going to be coming through, so I pushed pretty hard and managed to get past Woody, then gapped those guys, and just managed it to the end.

"I couldn't be more happy, I can't wait to get home and see the kids."

When asked if he would backflip on his retirement, Courtney quipped: "I might retire this afternoon after this, no look I've had an amazing run, and days like this do make it hard. That's probably why there's so much emotion coming out. It's special.

"I'm not going to be moving from here for a while, we'll get all of the boys and girls in and do some photos, and really enjoy it because motorsport is full of more bad days than good.

"So when you have the good ones, you have to make them last."