Tears flow as Kostecki prevails for Bathurst 1000 crown
Joanna Guelas |
Brodie Kostecki is a two-time Bathurst 1000 winner, pulling off a hair-raising finish after race leader Anton De Pasquale ran out of fuel on the final lap.
Just as De Pasquale looked set to cruise to victory in Sunday’s great race, defending Supercars champion Chaz Mostert crashed into the wall at Forrest’s Elbow with five laps to go.
It was a dogged Kostecki who made the most of the first safety car of the gruelling 161-lap marathon, the Dick Johnson Racing driver overtaking polesitter Zach Bates en route to De Pasquale, before the Team 18 driver’s last-lap calamity.
Triple Eight star Will Brown and co-driver Scott Pyne finished second, followed by Matt Stone Racing rookie Bates in third with Aaron Seton.
An emotional Kostecki shed tears as he spoke to co-driver Todd Hazelwood after crossing the finish line.
Tears also flowed in the Team 18 garage, while De Pasquale sat emotionless as he waited for a tow back to pit lane.
“I love you guys,” a sobbing Kostecki said over the radio.
Kostecki and Hazelwood soared to victory without long-time engineer George Commins, who is recovering at home after a mountain biking accident.
The 2024 Bathurst 1000 champions for Erebus Motorsport, the duo’s bid at claiming a second victory looked shot after a disastrous pit stop with less than 40 laps to go.
As the Dick Johnson Racing crew struggled to replace the No.17 Ford Mustang’s brakes, Kostecki tumbled from first to fifth after dominating the opening half.
Three-time series champion Scott McLaughlin was the last to win the 1000km epic for Dick Johnson Racing, doing so in 2019 with Alexandre Premat.
For Bates and Seton, the Matt Stone Racing pair will leave Bathurst after a fairytale weekend.
Widely unknown to those outside Australian motorsport circles before this event, the 22-year-old Bates is now the fastest driver in the Gen3 era.
Bates dedicated his record-breaking provisional-pole lap of 2:03.9376 to his mother Alison Drower, who died from cancer weeks before his Bathurst 1000 debut last year.
The Canberra local is also the son of former rally driver and Supercars driver Rick Bates, and nephew of four-time Australian Rally champion Neal Bates.
This weekend was also a family affair for co-driver Seton, who started from the top spot 30 years after his father, two-time Australian Touring Car champion Glenn Seton, claimed pole for the Bathurst 1000.
Unlike the wet weather chaos that ensued during last year’s race, drivers flaunted blistering pace under sunny conditions and reached the halfway mark in less than three hours.
The record before Sunday’s race for the longest a Bathurst 1000 had gone without a safety car was 132 laps, set in 2024 when Kostecki and Hazelwood won in hot and dry conditions.
Defending Bathurst 1000 winner Matt Payne and new co-driver Will Davison finished fifth after serving two penalties.
Series leader Payne was first slapped with a five-second penalty for a tussle with David Reynolds at the top of Conrod Straight, before serving a drive-through penalty when a Grove crew member was found to have mistakenly retrieved a loose rear wheel beyond pit lane limits.
BATHURST 1000 RESULTS:
1. Brodie Kostecki/Todd Hazelwood (No.17 Dick Johnson Racing)
2. Will Brown/Scott Pye (No.888 Triple Eight Race Engineering)
3. Zach Bates/Aaron Seton (No.10 Matt Stone Racing)
4. Jack Le Brocq/Harri Jones (No.4 Matt Stone Racing)
5. Matt Payne/Will Davison (No.19 Grove Racing)
AAP