‘I wouldn’t say we’re safe’: Reigning Bathurst winner says finals no guarantee in all-or-nothing enduros

In a 2024 season that offered him limited joy, there’s one afternoon Brodie Kostecki will never forget.

Winning the Bathurst 1000 for the first time was the perfect punctuation mark for his career at Erebus. Having won the team’s first title in 2023 but having already decided to quite for Dick Johnson Racing in 2025, it was the final achievement to unlock for the team that gave him his Supercars debut.

“I had the dream as a young boy to win the Great Race,” he tells Fox Sports. “I’ll never forget that feeling crossing the start-finish line with the chequered flag and being the Peter Brock Trophy winner with my great mate Todd.

“But I remember as soon as I crossed the start-finish line — after a whole bunch of emotions came through, obviously — I was already thinking about how I was going to try when the next one.

“I’m a bit funny like that. I’m always onto the next step as soon as I’ve completed one.”

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Standing on the precipice of the two-round 2025 Enduro Cup, however, and the game has changed.

The target is still to win the Bathurst 1000 — true for every driver who’ll line up on the grid on 12 October — but his result over the next two rounds will dictate absolutely whether he has any chance at all of claiming a second championship.

The US-inspired finals format is in its first season of effect in Supercars, and we’re fast approaching the business end of the year.

Only the 10 drivers as of the chequered flag in Bathurst will be remain in contention of the Australian domestic motorsport’s biggest prize.

And the 2023 champion and 2024 Bathurst winner is far from safe.

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FINALS EQUATION

Kostecki is the highest placed driver in the championship without a 300-point buffer to Thomas Randle in 10th.

With 600 points still up for grabs before the first round of the finals, it’s an uncomfortable position for the reigning Bathurst winner.

Drivers on the finals bubble

6. Brodie Kostecki: +214 points

7. Anton de Pasquale: +104 points

8. Andre Heimgartner: +21 points

9. Ryan Wood: +14 points

10. Thomas Randle: 0 points (1062 points total)

11. Kai Allen: -20 points

12. Cameron Hill: -108 points

13. Nick Percat: -179 points

14. Bryce Fullwood: -181 points

15. James Golding: -188 points

16. Jack Le Brocq: -217 points

17. Will Davison: 251 points

“I wouldn’t say we’re safe,” he says. “Definitely the next two rounds, because they’re one race each, they offer a lot of points.

“You don’t want to go in and have a DNF or a failure or have someone else take you out of the race.

“There’s still a lot of risk going into those two races, and we’re not quite safe enough yet, obviously.

“We’ll be obviously trying to win the races, but the goal for us is to make it into the 10 and try to win at Bathurst.

“We’ll just focus on ourselves and take it race by race.”

For the record, a win in Tailem Bend and in Bathurst is worth 300 points. If Kostecki were to fail to finish at this weekend’s Bend 500, Randle would need only a top-five finish to jump him immediately.

The equation would then be even more straightforward for Anton de Pasquale, Andre Heimgartner and Ryan Wood with their smaller gaps.

Wood is the danger man in the equation. While he’s 200 points behind, the WAU young gun has had his points weighed down more by bad luck than bad performances, and the Kiwi is one of the form drivers coming into the enduro campaign.

But the endurance rounds themselves are wildcard events. Even a small moment can have big consequences at these one-shot weekends, and with the field of drivers doubled to include co-drivers of varying levels of experience, speed and confidence, the risk of the unusual is substantially higher than at any other time in the year.

‘YOU CAN’T PEAK TOO EARLY’

Kostecki’s finals prospects come against the backdrop of his high-profile switch to Dick Johnson Racing this season.

DJR is the sport’s oldest grandee, though the weight of acting as Ford’s homologation team has stifled its results in recent seasons.

Kostecki was signed to the team in part to revitalise its fortunes, injecting new ideas and approaches to the squad, which will lose homologation status to Ford-bound Triple Eight next season.

The transition, though, has been only gradual.

He was back on pole position in just the third round of the season — in Taupō, for races 9 and 10 — but he returned only one podium for his efforts, a third on Saturday evening.

His next podium would have to wait until the Townsville 500, where he won the opening race, but he hasn’t finished better than fifth since.

It’s left him sixth in the championship standings with an average finishing position of 8.57 to go with his average qualifying result of 8.0.

But the 27-year-old says he’s still on a steep learning curve as he adjusts to his new surroundings.

“I feel like we’ve slowly been making some progress,” he says. “We’ve been a little bit inconsistent, but that happens.

“It’s a lot different than my previous team, with a lot more people, and there’s a lot of infrastructure and whatnot. It’s been great to be involved in a lot of that.

“I think I’ve been pretty fortunate to have some pretty familiar people around me, with my race engineer [George Commins] and obviously the race engineer on car 17 [Tom Moore].

“Progress isn’t really linear; you have to have some dips in in drops to learn to get better. I feel like we’ve been doing that. and I feel like we’re in a good place coming into enduros.”

But the biggest hurdle was one that no amount of friendly engineers would be able to magically solve.

“Working with the team, it’s been a few little things here and there that I’m not quite used to with having more people around and obviously not using the team to its full potential.

“But probably the biggest thing for me has been the difference between the manufacturers of cars. That’s been the biggest change to get used to. I’m feeling like I’m getting a little bit more on top of it now, but there are still a few more gaps that we can’t quite solve.

“We need to do a bit better on our side with car set-up and chasing the track conditions a bit more. The set-up window for the Ford seems a little bit smaller.”

THE BEND IS BACK

The mission to find the car’s sweet spot might be helped by the format in effect this weekend in Tailem Bend, where almost three hours of practice are scheduled over five session.

Kostecki will also start with positive history at the South Australian circuit.

Last time the series raced in Tailem Bend, in 2023, the soon-to-be champion had the run of the place, taking two poles and sweeping to three victories

It was his most convincing weekend of the season and set him up for championship success four rounds later.

While the track’s first endurance billing changes the game, Kostecki can call himself the track’s form driver.

“It was a great time,” he recalls. “I’d just come back from our America at that point, when I did my NASCAR debut on the Cup series.

“It’ll be a lot different, I’d say, this year in a different manufacturer and obviously the 500 being a long-distance race.

“We’ll just have to take it as it comes. We get a few practice sessions and partnering with Todd, he always does a fantastic job.

“I feel like I’m in a good spot there with having such a great co-driver.”

As the most recent winner in both Tailem Bend and Bathurst, and with his first victory for DJR still fresh in the memory, it’s tempting to believe Kostecki is poised to peak at just the right time.

The West Australian thinks it’s not that simple, however.

“You definitely cannot peak too early,” he says. “It doesn’t just come and go. You’re continuously learning.

“It’s not that you lose it, it’s the fact that people get better.

“I hope that we’re one of those teams that can get a little bit better, get a little bit more competitive. I feel like we’ve been doing that lately.

“We’ve just come off the back of Queensland Raceway where we had some top fives and showed some good speed at times.

“But going into the finals, you just want to be fast. There are no excuses for us.”

Kostecki is approaching the one-year anniversary of the greatest single-weekend performance of his career, but if he continues growing in strength with DJR, the best is yet to come.