Brown reveals what caused ‘rookie mistake' in Kostecki battle

Will Brown was so close to snapping a win drought, only for a "rookie mistake" to gift victory to Brodie Kostecki.

Starting from pole position, his first since May 2025, Brown did a sterling job to keep friend and rival Kostecki at bay as the laps wound down on Sunday.

At Turn 11, where he had caught trouble multiple times across the weekend, Brown caught dirty track conditions, locked his rear wheels, ran long and opened the door to Kostecki.

Kostecki raced away to victory, leaving Brown sitting with yet another case of what could have been.

"I saw him coming and to be honest, I knew he was fast," the Red Bull Ampol star said in victory lane.

"I made a mistake. I thought, Brodie's the type of guy that's not going to not have a crack. He was going to have a lunge.

"So I went to block, got on the dirty stuff, locked the rears, did it all by myself. To be honest, he just forced me into my own error, and it was a rookie mistake by me."

It was the first genuine on-track battle between the former Erebus Motorsport teammates since they launched their Lucky Dogs podcast, and Brown was hoping he would get the upper hand.

"It was cool to have both the lucky dogs up there though, and I thought we might actually get into it," Brown said.

"I thought, 'we mightn't see the podcast still going next week actually, after this one', but nah, I just made a mistake, so it's on me."

Remarkably, it was Brown's first podium of the season, in what was Race 7. It was his longest wait for a podium to begin a Gen3 season, having claimed podiums in Race 3 (2023), Race 1 (2024) and Race 2 (2025).

"I'm excited to get a finish instead of just all this carnage that I've had this year," the 2024 Supercars champion said.

"Still proud to get second for the team."

Brown moved to 11th in the championship, with Kostecki taking the lead after Broc Feeney and Matt Payne both encountered Sunday nightmares.