The eight words that sunk Kostecki once again

Brodie Kostecki has started off pole in the last two races of the Repco Supercars Championship. At the end of both of those races, the same eight words have been uttered.

"I knew I was in a world of hurt."

To say it's a far cry from the dominant form of the start of his season is perhaps a bit of a stretch, but it's another race where a chance to score a race win has gone begging.

Whilst in Tasmania, lingering damage left the 2023 champion fighting with one hand behind his back, it was just a pure lack of tyre life and car speed that hindered the #17 Ford.

Though he outmuscled Anton De Pasquale at the start, Kostecki was soon left holding up a train of cars four laps in, though he held the lead at the end of the pit cycle.

However, it was plain to see it was merely stalling the inevitable, and Cam Waters scythed his way down the inside of Turn 1 on lap 23, romping away to his first victory in 16 months.

"I knew I was in a world of hurt, pretty much," Kostecki admitted post-race.

"If I wanted to bring the car home in second, third, or fourth, the best thing to do was to unfortunately let him [Waters] go.

More telling was Kostecki's non-existent defence, with Kostecki going into damage limitation mode as he fought a car that chewed through rear tyres.

That became a podium scrap in the last five laps, as Penrite Racing duo Kai Allen and Matt Payne surged into view, having run similarly long to Waters' first stint.

Such was Kostecki's struggle, that both Allen and Payne stormed through at the first corner in one fell swoop. Kostecki was able to fend off Will Brown in the one lap dash to the line, and claimed fourth.

However, unlike Tasmania, there are sliver linings for the Shell V-Power Racing Team and their talisman, with Kostecki confident they know where the gains are to be found.

"We just didn't have much tyre life that race, I think we were just probably a change behind of where we should be," Kostecki continued.

"We were just abusing the rear tyres a bit and couldn't really carry any mid-corner speed.

"We'll get it tuned up for tomorrow, this track is just so punishing when you burn off the rears, every corner just flows onto another one, there's no real braking so all the time is made up in the corners basically.

"We'll do a bit of work on the Shell V-Power Ford Mustang and come back tomorrow."

Kostecki was also able to close his margin to Broc Feeney in the championship standings, with Feeney enduring a torrid run to 14th.

Feeney is now 59 points clear of Payne, with Kostecki now 146 points off the pace.

Saturday Supercars action begins with Boost Mobile Qualifying at 10:45am local time/11:15am AEST.