By Jacob Brown This wasn’t supposed to be Brodie Kostecki’s year. Not during the off-season, when the reigning Supercars champion was locked in a drawn-out dispute with Erebus Motorsport.
Not when he missed the opening rounds of the 2024 series at Bathurst and Albert Park, as the heated standoff saw Todd Hazelwood take his place.
Not even when he returned behind the wheel of the Chevrolet Camaro for April’s event in Taupo, only to spend months struggling to climb back to the top of the grid.
Even in September, when his long-rumored 2025 move to Dick Johnson Racing became official, there was speculation that the 26-year-old’s final four rounds of this series would be overshadowed by the ongoing drama.
That theory gained traction last month when Kostecki and co-driver Hazelwood failed to finish the Sandown 500, and again earlier this week when Kostecki battled illness and nerves, not to mention tyre troubles, leading up to Saturday’s top-10 shootout, where he still claimed pole position for the second consecutive year.
But that speculation proved to be unfounded, as Kostecki later revealed that he and the Erebus team arrived at Mount Panorama with an odd sense of certainty that they would win.
They were right. In the fastest-ever Bathurst 1000 – with five of the six hours uninterrupted by a safety car – Kostecki and Hazelwood led from start to finish, taking home their first Peter Brock Trophy after a thrilling sprint finish was set up by the only safety car of the day.
“We’ll fill the trophy with some Chiko rolls tonight,” Hazelwood quipped. “That’s probably job number one.”
After Kostecki crossed the finish line ahead of Broc Feeney and co-driver Jamie Whincup (with their Red Bull teammates Will Brown and Scott Pye in third), he remained in the car, overwhelmed with emotion. Even when Feeney came to congratulate him, Kostecki stayed seated, wiping tears from behind his visor. Hazelwood eventually pulled him out, having just told Channel Seven’s broadcast crew, “I think I’m hallucinating. When you win Bathurst, it makes up for everything.”
For Hazelwood, the win marked his first Supercars championship victory in 195 starts at the Bathurst 1000. “I hate that stat,” he later admitted. “That was burning in the back of my mind.”
The 29-year-old South Australian reflected on his family’s sacrifices, including remortgaging their home and holding fundraising sausage sizzles to support his career. “To win The Great Race is a nice return,” he said.
But Hazelwood’s comments could also apply to Kostecki’s journey. Five years after suffering carbon dioxide poisoning at his Bathurst 1000 debut at age 21, Kostecki had just become the fifth driver this century to win from pole position.
“It’s redemption from last year, for sure,” Kostecki said, referring to his second-place finish from pole in 2023. “I’m just in awe. Broc was breathing down my neck the whole time, and those 32 or 31 shootout laps were full-on.
“It’s funny around here. If you back off a little, you can get into trouble. I knew if I did shootout laps every time, I wouldn’t make a mistake.”
Kostecki downplayed questions about the Erebus drama, saying he never doubted his ability. “Yeah, I think time does heal all wounds,” he said. “We just won Bathurst, so I can’t thank the crew enough, and we’ll celebrate tonight.”
In a race of near-unprecedented intensity, the first safety car didn’t appear until lap 132, when Matt Payne couldn’t downshift and hit the wall at The Cutting just as the field headed into the pits for the final stop of the day.
Until that moment, anyone who bet on the rare no-safety-car option would have been feeling lucky. Since the introduction of safety cars at Bathurst 1000 in 1987, only twice – in 1989 and 1991 – has the race gone without one.