Expert Analysis: Behind Kostecki’s masterful stint

This is an exclusive post-event Supercars.com column by championship-winning Race Engineer Scott Sinclair. Sinclair will preview and debrief each round of the 2026 Repco Supercars Championship from his own perspective.

Kostecki's super stint

Brodie Kostecki's return to the top step of the podium on Sunday was largely due to a superb middle stint of the race, where he blitzed the field and reclaimed third in the championship.

Kostecki pitted from second place on lap 16. At that point, he was 0.7 seconds behind leader Cam Waters. By the time Waters pitted nine laps later, Kostecki had opened a nine-second lead. In theory, the tyre offset should’ve meant that Waters would bridge that gap, but by the time Kostecki pitted again on lap 48, the gap was still nine seconds, with Waters unable to make any ground.

Kostecki's 32-lap stint, the longest stint of the weekend, was on average 0.2 seconds per lap quicker than Waters, despite being seven laps longer. His ability to look after the tyres was the key, finishing the stint with tyre degradation 20% better than Waters'.

In hindsight though, we probably should've seen this coming. The day before he'd been leading the race before a pitstop issue cost him 11 seconds. Despite this, he was still able to drive back to third place, proving his pace wasn't a one-off Sunday special.

Brown's resurgence amidst Triple Eight's struggles

Will Brown's race performance across the weekend was somewhat lost amongst Triple Eight's ongoing chassis struggles and a miscalculation in qualifying while attempting to save tyres.

Across the three races, Brown gained 29 positions, the third highest at an event in the GEN3 era. It was reminiscent of his championship-winning 2024 season, where his ability to move forward was the primary reason he beat teammate and title challenger Broc Feeney, whose qualifying performance was far superior. 

Even last year, amongst Brown’s qualifying struggles, he ended up finishing second in the championship. No mean feat for a driver whose average starting position was ninth. 

Townsville was the first time this season we’ve seen Brown’s trademark race pace on display and while there's plenty of work to do still, his performance suggests that he's starting to re-discover his superpower, this time in a Mustang. 

Low-key Le Brocq's Finals ambitions

Jack Le Brocq has moved back into the all-important Top 10 of the championship after spending the last eight races sitting eleventh.

No metric I log jumps out to explain why Le Brocq is where he is — he sits around average for the lot. The reason he’s in the Top 10 though, is because he's had fewer bad days than anyone around him. He's stayed out of trouble on track, been mostly clean in the pits, and his team have given him a reliable car. He's converting a qualifying ranking of 15th into a championship Top 10, a gap that doesn't close by accident.

It's not the stuff of highlight reels, but in a championship format that punishes mistakes, staying out of trouble is a strategy in itself. Secure that Finals berth and the career-best championship result that would come with it, and he'll be the envy of all those who missed out, whether they were faster than him or grabbed more headlines.

Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes

Across the three Townsville races, all the top teams made mistakes that impacted their results. It's not the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last, but I can't help but think back to last year's Gold Coast event, where the three cars that were eliminated from the first round of the Finals were entirely the result of self-induced mistakes. They'd spent 27 races trying to get into the finals, only for execution errors to eliminate them.

In the past, the length of the championship generally diluted mistakes made over the course of the season. A few positions lost here or there are easily forgotten, but it's different now. Every championship position between first and eleventh means something. The Finals format doesn't forgive mistakes.

Within the teams, the primary focus is typically on car speed and how they can improve that. The old saying "car speed makes everything easier" is true, but it doesn't stop mistakes from happening. Brodie Kostecki's Saturday race was evidence of this.

While you can't fault the effort the crews working on the cars put in, I just wonder whether those that already have enough car speed to secure a Finals berth should shift some focus to things like pitstops, where a mistake in the Finals could end your season well before your car speed says it should.

With limited time and resources, you have to make compromises, but when the Finals arrive and the pressure mounts, you don't rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your preparation.

Scott Sinclair is one of the most respected voices in pit lane, famously engineering James Courtney to the 2010 championship with Dick Johnson Racing. Sinclair also spent stints at the Holden Racing Team and Kelly Racing, spent time on the Supercars Commission, and recently joined Supercars as a data analyst.

The views in this article do not necessarily express the opinions of Supercars, teams or drivers.