POLE position didn’t prove the passageway to victory for Brodie Kostecki and Todd Hazelwood at The Bend, but another at Bathurst would smash an all-time Great Race record.

Kostecki has secured pole for each of the past three editions of the Repco Bathurst 1000.

That matches the streaks set by Allan Moffat (1970-72) and Peter Brock (1977-79).

No one in event history has gone four on the trot, and it would take a brave pundit to discount the #17 Shell V-Power Mustang from getting the job done, with already seven poles on the board in 2026 – not to mention his Bathurst track record.

“Ultimately I’m just focused on making it to Sunday first and trying to get my hands on the Peter Brock Trophy again would be great with my good mate Toddy,” said Kostecki.

“We’ve had really good car speed lately and the team has been in form.

“The Bend was a bit of an outlier for us but we’ll regroup and go again.”

The ‘outlier’ Kostecki refers to is the manner in which Car #17 plummeted from starting first to finishing off the lead lap at The Bend, the rot having begun with a nightmare opening stint for Hazelwood which the team suspected may have been caused by a tyre batch issue.

“We know that both (Dick Johnson Racing) cars started on wet tyres and they both started on the same tyre pressures and there was a really big pace difference,” said Kostecki.

“Ultimately we got on a different set of wets and the car was fine, so there is still a lot to unpack for that. We want to try to be on top of it going into the biggest race of the season.”

Kostecki is one of eight drivers already locked into the 2026 finals, along with Matt Payne, Broc Feeney, Kai Allen, Cam Waters, Anton De Pasquale, Will Brown and Chaz Mostert.

Speaking in the Surfers Paradise pitlane today, Kostecki reflected on finding himself “hanging out of a fence” last October when he crashed heavily during qualifying for Supercars’ first ever finals race.

James Golding and Brodie Kostecki with Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate. Pic: Supplied/Mark Horsburgh

“If you make a mistake it can put you out of the championship, which it ultimately did to me last year,” he said.

Kostecki also gave the all-clear from his end for more of the spectacular beach chicane hangtime that proved a feature of the 2025 Gold Coast 500.

“I was okay with it. I guess to put it into perspective, the last two years we’ve really had no crashes or incidents through the back chicane; the years prior with the tyre bundles there it caused some really big crashes actually,” he said.

“Obviously it was a really cool spectacle but probably not ideal having cars with all four wheels off in the air, but I’m easy. I’m just a race car driver and I’ll drive what’s put beneath me.”