Brodie Kostecki fends off Cam Waters to secure victory at The Bend
Brodie Kostecki saw off the challenge of Cam Waters through the final stages of the first Supercars endurance event at The Bend to secure victory for Dick Johnson Racing.
In a race devoid of any safety car interventions, Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood proved to be the class of the field as they repeated their success from Bathurst last season in a late battle to the flag.
Points leader Broc Feeney had bagged pole on Saturday and it was team-mate Jamie Whincup who took the start, holding the lead in the opening stages of the race before Hazelwood hit the front having worked his way through from fourth on the grid.
Hazelwood was able to start building a lead through to the opening round of pitstops where the race started to fall apart from Triple Eighth as Whincup suffered a fuelling issue that meant he took longer in the pits and didn’t get as much fuel as was needed.
Hazelwood led until handing the car over to Kostecki, although he briefly lost the lead to Chaz Mostert when WAU elected to try and undercut in the pits.
Kostecki soon reclaimed the lead of the race but had Waters – who had taken over from Mark Winterbottom – chasing him down, with Waters coming in for his second stop a lap earlier than Kostecki.
Waters put the leader under pressure when Kostecki then rejoined but the defending champion managed to keep his rival at bay and then edged clear to emerge victorious by just over three seconds at the chequered flag.
Matt Payne had pushed to try and make it a three way battle for the lead late on but couldn’t keep pace with the top two and would have to settle for third alongside Garth Tander to complete a 1-2-3 for Ford.
The top Chevrolet would prove to be the Triple Eight car of Will Brown and Scott Pye as the pair battled back from their issues in qualifying to climb through the field, with Nick Percat and Tim Slade taking fifth.
Although Jayden Ojeda lost ground at the start, he and Ryan Wood recovered to sixth which meant the top six places on the results were filled by cars from six different teams.
After the tough opening stop, things went from bad to worse for Feeney and Whincup, with Whincup running off track more than once before handing the car over to Feeney.
In the end, they would take the flag back in 19th spot.
