Brodie Kostecki’s championship hopes remain alive after a miracle rebuild of his Shell V-Power Mustang, only hours after he wrote it off in a brutal Gold Coast crash.
But his hopes of a remarkable return to the top 10 copped a blow when the 2023 Supercars champion was hit with a late qualifying kerb strike, dropping him to 14th.
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While Kostecki’s Sunday start was soured, it was Red Bull Racing’s Will Brown who suffered the most in the qualifying sessions.
Brown has already endured a horror Gold Coast 500 with a top 10 shootout crash before a tangle with Kai Allen that sent him to last and a moment with Will Davison that his rival later described as “double standards” all on Saturday.
Saying he needed to “stop screwing up” ahead of Sunday’s sessions, Brown again couldn’t stay out of the drama.
He lost control at turn 1 and simply became a “passenger” as his Triple Eight Camaro slid sideways through to turn 2.
“The big, long slow slide in the end … he got away with that!” a shocked Mark Skaife said.
“That’s far less damage than you could normally think!”
“He was a passenger,” Garth Tander added.
“He needs to go buy a lotto ticket – that could have been as big as Scott McLaughlin’s crash we saw back in 2019 back in turn 2. Very, very lucky to get away with it!”
Somehow, Brown avoided binning it – but brought the qualifying session to an abrupt stop with a resulting red flag.
That left a one-lap dash at the end for the field – and it was Cam Waters who made the most of the opportunity.
Brown was then penalised for a kerb strike after remarkably getting back out in the session, ending up in 18th.
“Unfortunately as you could see, Will couldn’t quite get into the zone from a sports performance point of view – he’s as disappointed as anybody why that couldn’t happen,” team boss Jamie Whincup said.
“We’re very, very lucky there – that should have been a write-off really. Should have been on the trailer on the way home.
“Thankfully the damage wasn’t as bad so we’ll be able to get it out for the race.
“We’re here to help him – we’re here to help.”
Kostecki suffered the same fate as Brown off the back of his own kerb strike.
“It was pretty faultless … car’s got plenty of speed,” he said.
“Obviously we were unfortunate, just a millimetre out and got a kerb hop there. Just got to pass a lot of cars in the race.
“I was fine (after the epic crash that rocked Saturday’s racing) – the team gives me confidence so yeah I just went out there and did my job. Made a little mistake and couldn’t repay them today so far.
“We’ll get stuck into the race and have a crack.”
KOSTECKI’S CREW PULL EPIC ALL-NIGHTER
It was 11.17am when Brodie Kostecki lost control of his damaged Mustang and ploughed into the barrier in a 19G crash so intense it resulted in four photographers being injured on Saturday.
In good news for the 2023 Supercars champion, Kostecki was cleared of any injury and allowed to return to racing this weekend.
And as Australia slept on Saturday night, the Dick Johnson Racing crew got to work off the back of a special dispensation to take the Mustang off-site.
The car was returned back to the circuit on Saturday night, where a new front end was reassembled.
And after an all-nighter, Kostecki rolled out for Sunday’s qualifying.
“The crash happened and then it went straight to the shop, where we stripped off the front of it,” Kostecki’s Race Engineer George Commins told Supercars.com in the DJR garage.
“By 4pm it was on its way to PACE. The PACE boys worked on it and left there just after 8:30pm, I think it was here about 9pm.
“We worked on a few other things at the shop. I got back here about 1am, at which point it was mostly together at the front.
“We ran up at 5am, just dropped it quickly on the patch to make sure there was nothing serious around 5:30am.
“These boys went home, had a quick shower and came back again for 7am and finished it off.
“It’s a different engine. There was a lot of damage. The whole front end’s different. The actual damage to the chassis probably wasn’t as bad as gonna be.”
The efforts keep Kostecki’s now faint Finals hopes alive, with the 2023 Supercars champion dropping from fifth to ninth in the standings, 66 points below the cut-line.
For Kostecki to make it to the Semi Final without winning on Sunday, he must finish ahead of Ryan Wood and at least 10th if Thomas Randle and Anton De Pasquale both DNF.
Fox Motorsport’s Neil Crompton said it was a huge effort from the DJR crew with it all on the line in this new Supercars finals format.
“Spare a thought for those in there at Dick Johnson Racing. Just fatigue,” he said.
Gold Coast 500 kicks off Finals series | 01:13
“They are running on adrenaline and caffeine at the moment
“Not easy work conditions out there.
“It’s warm, it’s 26 degrees … it’s hard to keep a laser focus in a game that requires it.”
“That car was crashed to an extend that if it was your road car, it would be absolutely written off,” commentator Mark Larkham said.
“These young mechanics worked until 5am this morning … utterly brilliant!”
Parts of this article initially appeared onSupercars.com and was republished with permission.
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