{"id":765193,"date":"2026-06-28T06:10:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T06:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/765193\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T06:10:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T06:10:17","slug":"dick-johnson-racing-engineer-george-commins-reflects-on-rare-supercars-podium-appearance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/765193\/","title":{"rendered":"Dick Johnson Racing engineer George Commins reflects on rare Supercars podium appearance"},"content":{"rendered":"

ONE of the unusual sights from last weekend\u2019s Darwin Triple Crown was seeing George Commins with didgeridoo trophy in hand on the Hidden Valley rostrum.<\/p>\n

Commins is plenty accomplished in motorsport, having operated in Formula 1 with Williams before guiding Rick Kelly to Nissan\u2019s final Supercars race win, and then forging a dream team with Brodie Kostecki<\/a> that has netted championship and Bathurst 1000 glory.<\/p>\n

But filling in for an unwell Kostecki on the podium?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was different. Can\u2019t say I\u2019ve ever done that before,\u201d Commins told V8 Sleuth.<\/p>\n

Having been drenched in champagne, he added with a chuckle: \u201cI can\u2019t believe how much it stings, if I\u2019m honest.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny time I\u2019ve been up there (as the winning team representative) I run away before that happens, but I couldn\u2019t this time unfortunately.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Cam Waters<\/a> and Kai Allen<\/a> douse George Commins in champagne. Pic: Ross Gibb<\/p>\n

Commins and Kostecki are known for having an especially tight working relationship; the latter\u2019s entire five-plus-year full-time career has come with the former in his corner.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why Commins was not surprised that the #17 driver was able to defy trying circumstances to hang on for a podium in the Saturday race.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main thing was to keep the communication up more so than what we normally would, just to keep him focused and give him hope, I guess,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly he doesn\u2019t use that much brainpower to actually drive the car\u2026 so he can drive it on autopilot and still do very well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having been replaced by Todd Hazelwood<\/a> for the Sunday leg, Kostecki is due back for the Townsville 500 in a fortnight\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

The Undercut \u2013 How hot is too hot?<\/p>\n

The Undercut is back for another week, downloading a hot weekend in the Top End for Supercars!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ONE of the unusual sights from last weekend\u2019s Darwin Triple Crown was seeing George Commins with didgeridoo trophy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":765194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-765193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=765193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/765194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}