Apologetic Kostecki explains trigger for wild Feeney incident

Albert Park turned on a Supercars classic yesterday, and it was largely thanks to two of Ford's leading lights waging an epic duel for the win.

As the field smashed each other to pieces behind, Broc Feeney and Brodie Kostecki would clear out ahead of the pack, but nearly added to the chaos on lap 12.

Kostecki would tag the rear of Feeney into the high-speed left-hander at Turn 9 on lap 12, sending the #88 Mustang through the grass.

Crucially, the Shell V-Power Ford wouldn't pass the Red Bull Ampol Racing entry through the ordeal, also electing to remain behind at the prime overtaking opportunity at Turn 11.

In what was already a tense battle, the collision added Cam Waters to the mix, adding to a thrilling finish to a wild race.

Indeed, at the end of 15 brutal laps, Feeney would edge out Kostecki by just 0.14s, the closest top four Supercars finish of all-time at Albert Park, with Waters and Kai Allen in fourth also within a second.

Immediately after parking in victory lane, Kostecki apologised to Feeney for the contact, and further reiterated that he didn't intend to tip the championship leader off at the post-race press conference.

"No, no. I wasn't at all," Kostecki responded when asked if he was intending to rattle the cage of Feeney.

"He was just really weak in that sector like he said, and our car's been great all weekend in races.

"I think it showed on the last lap when he had a pretty good gap, I closed it down in that sector, so it was a bit of a misjudgement.

"I readdressed it, let him box on, and let him carry on for a couple of corners and just wanted to restart it all again, because I don't want to win races like that, and he was driving really well to stay in front of me."

Despite needing to have a couple of major corrections after being bumped at the fastest part of the circuit, Feeney revealed that he had in fact elected not to block in order to save Kostecki from receiving a penalty and ending the battle.

"No, I didn't, and I purposely didn't block into the next corner, because I knew if Brodie overtook me there probably would've been a penalty, which I didn't want to happen," said Feeney post-race.

"The safest bet for me was to just go straight ahead and cut through, thankfully we had a big gap to the guys behind.

"Brodie's smart, he followed me for a couple of corners, and we got back to business as usual."

Feeney was also highly complimentary of the 2023 champion's race craft and respect on-track, making comment that Kostecki is one of his most trusted rivals.

"I just think we have always raced really well together, we probably had a couple of comings together in my rookie year and that," Feeney said.

"But to be honest, you learn with some guys pretty quickly who you can race really hard, and I think me and Brodie have had some awesome battles.

"We're not going to screw each other over in situations, if someone's way faster we're not going to fight it to the death, but we were going for a race win today.

"I think we had a lot of fun. A bit of rubbing, all that sort of stuff, just good Supercars racing.

"We've known each other for a long time, but I think you can trust certain people on the track."

Kostecki has one hand on the Larry Perkins Trophy, and will line up from fourth for the final race of the weekend at 10:10am local time, whilst Feeney will start from 11th.