'Tough' Kostecki's gritty podium drive praised

The efforts of an unwell Brodie Kostecki to claim an against-the-odds podium in Darwin weren’t lost on two of his closest confidants.

The Shell V-Power Racing Team star battled a virus throughout the Darwin weekend, yet claimed a Friday pole position and Saturday podium.

Kostecki dug deep to pass Penrite Racing Matt Payne for the final podium position in the 200km Saturday contest, but required medical attention after the race. Dick Johnson Racing Team Manager Tom Moore stood in for Kostecki at the press conference, labelling his driver a "tough cookie."

Such was Kostecki’s condition, that he was unable to race on Sunday, opening the door to a surprise cameo by co-driver Todd Hazelwood. A cool suit failure also sidelined Tickford Racing's Thomas Randle.

While he enjoyed the chance to drive the #17 Ford, Hazelwood couldn’t skirt around the remarkable efforts by Kostecki the day before, which kept the 2023 champion’s Repco Sprint Cup hopes alive.

“We all know how tough Brodie is as a human,” Hazelwood said on the Lucky Dogs podcast.

"But the fact to see him so mentally drained… he just looked completely fried. Like, I can't think of another word for it. He just looked absolutely cooked. It was pretty tough to watch.

“I guess it showed he really gritted his teeth, got the car on the podium, but I think that pretty much took every ounce of energy for him to be able to achieve that in that race on Saturday.”

On a weekend he fought illness and missed a race, Kostecki only dropped 30 points to championship leader Broc Feeney. He later issued an update, saying it was a "difficult decision" not to race.

Kostecki is on track for Townsville, with his pre-event workload lightened by his team. Speaking on his PG & The Doc podcast, Dr Ryan Story said: “Looking after Brodie through the course of the weekend was something that was a priority for us.

“The fact that his drink failed on Saturday only compounded the trouble he was in. He was in good shape Saturday night, he had some fluids put in him and bounced back well. But Sunday morning, he was in all sorts of trouble.

“To make that call [was a] super-big deal for us, but we all immediately jumped into, 'Okay, how do we make sure he’s alright, let’s get him back to [Brisbane], let’s think about what comes next."

Former teammate and podcast co-host Will Brown revealed that Kostecki previously wasn’t one to wear cool suits.

News of Kostecki’s withdrawal rammed home to Brown just how unwell the #17 driver was, and how impressive his Saturday performance was.

“We know Brodie's tough. Everyone knows he is,” Triple Eight star Brown said.

“He wouldn't wear a cool suit nearly anywhere, like a lot of the time, and he would do the races fine.

“He'd hop out and be fine, and I wore a cool suit, and I'd be struggling. Then they said his cool suit didn't fail. I was like, ‘Oh, geez, the poor guy must be in a bad way’.

“When I heard he had to miss out on Sunday's race, I was like, ‘Far out. He must be pretty sick from the day before’.

"If that was Saturday, trying to get back in that car would've been mentally draining. You would've had to really dig deep.”

Kostecki is 203 points behind Feeney heading to the NTI Townsville 500 on July 10-12.