Brodie Kostecki to revisit scene of title-ending 2025 shunt
Kostecki pounded Turn 2 wall in Saturday qualifying
Mistake minimisation set to play pivotal role in wet Finals opener
The unforgiving streets of the Gold Coast have caught out the very best over the years. However, for Brodie Kostecki, when he was bitten, Surfers Paradise took away his chance to fight for a championship.
Kostecki was involved in a frightening crash in the first Boost Mobile Qualifying session of the weekend 12 months ago, as he pounded the outside wall at the Turn 1/2/3 chicane.
The resulting damage put Kostecki out for the day, and put a line through his championship chances effectively on the spot.
Fast forward 12 months, and Kostecki arguably enters Finals as the favourite off the strength of eight wins, including a stunning Bathurst triumph. Any win throughout Finals will promote any Finals Driver through to the next event, regardless of their other result.
But, with the weather forecast looking decidedly wet, execution and mistake minimisation is set to play a pivotal role across the course of the weekend. Kostecki knows it all too well from 12 months ago.
“Just trying to carry on that momentum that we've had throughout the whole year,” Kostecki said to media on Monday. “We've just got to execute and get through this Finals campaign, and it'll be pretty tough here this weekend with all the weather about. “One mistake can take you out for the whole weekend, as we saw here last year with myself. “Just look forward to going about our business and just trying to execute.” 2025 was a journey into the unknown with Finals, however with all bar one driver having featured in last year's post-season, what learnings drivers have taken could become a key talking point.
Whilst Kostecki and DJR were out at the first hurdle last year, they weren't the only ones to stumble in a Finals Series of attrition. Ryan Wood was harpooned by a fuel system leak, Anton De Pasquale was done in by two penalties, whilst at Sandown Matt Payne wiped himself out of contention after contact with Cam Waters.
However, Kostecki believes that there is still plenty to learn in Finals scenarios, having effectively become an also-ran at Sandown and Adelaide last year, despite picking up a $50k payday in a shortened Friday Adelaide sprint. “We learned a lot across last year, and I think everyone did in the sport as a whole, to be honest,” Kostecki added. “A lot of really good cars got taken out of contention, Matty at Sandown and a few others. Definitely lots to learn and just look about trying to go about our business and just try to execute.”
Kostecki will be without regular engineer George Commins for a second-consecutive event, as the championship and Bathurst-winning engineer continue to recover from injuries sustained mountain biking.
Team Manager Tom Moore will continue to engineer the #17 Ford, as he did in the successful Bathurst campaign.
On-track action begins on Friday, with Boost Mobile Qualifying ending the day at 4:05pm local time/5:05pm AEDT. Kostecki enters Finals as the fourth seed.
