Brodie Kostecki at peace with Sunday penalty in Sandown finale
Kostecki slammed with pit lane penalty for start procedure breach
Bathurst winner stormed through to 10th, securing second seed for Adelaide
Brodie Kostecki maintains “nothing was lost” in the grand scheme of the title fight, despite missing out on another shot at victory at Sandown.
The Shell V-Power Racing Team driver won his way to Adelaide with a commanding performance on Saturday, and appeared on pace to try and back it up on Sunday.
Kostecki meticulously carved through to 10th, his comeback drive locking him into second for the Grand Final.
Given points leader Matt Payne had a comfortable margin over Kostecki pre-race, the latter was at peace with being second at best for the Grand Final.
“I wasn’t too stressed when we got the drive-through, I knew we were really fast,” Kostecki told media on Monday.
“I knew that I was a chance at the win in the first stint with how the car was feeling. I knew I was going to lose roughly 35, 40 seconds.
“The field spread from fifth on backwards was quite big. I wasn’t so stressed about it to be honest, but it was really important for us to go in in second place.”
Another victory would have been sweet, and engineer Tom Moore maintained a podium was certainly up for grabs given how Kostecki recovered in a race that ran green.
When asked on Supercars’ Equip Super Cool Down Lap podcast if it was a win that got away, Moore replied: “Maybe. It would've been close, I think.
“I guess we knew even if we won that race and Matt had come second, we were still going to be second going into Adelaide anyway, so we weren't able to make up that gap if we'd been one-two.
“I think it was definitely a podium on the cards. I think time-wise, we finished roughly one drive-through away from the podium at the end of the race, funnily enough,
“Yeah, potentially, who knows? The car was still pretty quick. It probably wasn't as good as yesterday. It was still pretty good relative to the field. Had the same similar strengths, looked after its tyres really well. Wasn't quite as good at Turn 6 as it could've been.
“But yeah, it was still good, but just tried something a little bit different for that race when we had a little bit more freedom. Put a little bit of pressure off our back after yesterday, so it was all good.”
Kostecki will enter the bp Adelaide Grand Final 30 points behind Payne.
