'Like he does': Brodie Kostecki takes cheeky swipe at rival after stunning charge falls short

SYDNEY: Factory Chevrolet driver Anton De Pasquale has narrowly held off a fast-finishing Brodie Kostecki to win a thriller of a Supercars race at Sydney Motorsport Park.

Kostecki was catching De Pasquale hand over fist in the closing laps, but De Pasquale managed his tyre wear perfectly to cross the line barely a car length ahead.

The victory, which also came from pole position, was De Pasquale's first in two years and ended a 70-race win drought.

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It was his Team18 squad's first as the factory Chevrolet team in their first weekend in the role, and their first in any capacity since Darwin in 2023.

Kostecki emerged from the pits after the final round of stops with an eight second deficit to De Pasquale and 14 laps to get it done.

De Pasquale said he was being fed the gaps by his race engineer, and was running constant calculations to do the minimum to get home - which he did.

"I think you can see the emotion. We've been waiting for it. It was a good day, it's good to be back in the winner's circle – it's the first time for a lot of people on this car," De Pasquale said.

"I knew Brodie was going to be quick – I was doing the rough calculations and I knew he was going to get to me.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't stressed, but with two to go I knew we were sweet."

Starting from pole with Kostecki second, the pair ran side-by-side through the opening corners. Kostecki praised De Pasquale for his sportsmanship and clean racing, but couldn't resist a cheeky dig at a rival.

"We were so close off the line – he's a really respectful racer, so kudos to him. He could have ran me off like Ryan Wood does – only joking," he said, referencing Wood's controversial clash with Broc Feeney in Adelaide last year.

Earlier, the first safety car for the year was called on lap 10 after the engine in Andre Heimgartner's brand new Toyota Supra blew in spectacular fashion. The Kiwi immediately brought the car to a halt, and helicopter shots showed a thick oil slick trailing behind the car.

The safety car triggered a flurry of pitstops, which in itself triggered chaos in pit lane.

The PremiAir Racing entry of Jayden Ojeda lost a wheel, cars waiting for their teammates to be serviced blocked others from entering and exiting their pit stall, and then to top if off, Friday night's winner Broc Feeney copped a 15-second penalty after he was released from his pitstop into the path of Aaron Cameron, which caused more contact.

And it would only get worse for the Triple Eight Team, when Will Brown was slapped with a separate 15-second penalty for an infringement in the pitstop.

The race settled down in the middle laps as the various strategy games played out. Brown pitted early in order to serve his penalty, and was followed not long after by the race-leading Camaro of De Pasquale.

Kostecki extended his middle stint, with the hope of giving himself a tyre advantage later in the race.

When he finally did pit on lap 38 – six laps later than De Pasquale – he emerged in third place with a deficit to the leader of just over eight seconds, and immediately got to work.

He got past last year's Bathurst 1000 champion Matt Payne on lap 46, at which point he was 3.4 seconds behind De Pasquale with seven laps to close the gap.

It was down to 2.5 seconds with five laps to go, and just over a second with two laps to go.

But it wasn't to be - he crossed the line half a second behind after 200km of racing.

Supercars will have one final race on Sunday afternoon to end the opening weekend of racing.