{"id":377689,"date":"2026-04-13T18:10:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T18:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/377689\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T18:10:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T18:10:20","slug":"will-brown-broc-feeney-and-brodie-kostecki-remember-james-warbutons-contribution-as-supercars-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/377689\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Brown, Broc Feeney and Brodie Kostecki remember James Warbuton’s contribution as Supercars CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

LEADING drivers Will Brown<\/a>, Broc Feeney<\/a> and Brodie Kostecki<\/a> have noted the open lines of communication the driver group enjoyed with outgoing Supercars CEO James Warburton.<\/p>\n

Warburton\u2019s second stint as Supercar\u2019s CEO came to an abrupt end last week, in a move that surprised many within the industry.<\/a><\/p>\n

Talking on the latest edition of the Lucky Dogs Podcast<\/a>, the trio looked back fondly at the relationships that were quickly forged when he rejoined the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe obviously did a very good job when he was here a few years ago\u2026 what I think he was going to do was going to be pretty valuable to us in the future,\u201d said Brown.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got a lot of wealthy guys that are invested in the sport and own part of it, and on the board, it\u2019s interesting that they couldn\u2019t see eye-to-eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to know what it was over, what (Warburton\u2019s) vision was or what he wanted to do, or what they weren\u2019t happy with, but I\u2019m not too sure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like there had been a good vibe around the paddock, and that there had been a lot of aggression since he came in, and I\u2019m not sure if that was exactly in place before he was there, but since he has been in there, a lot of the changes he made do seem positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome I didn\u2019t agree with completely, like getting rid of (Neil) Crompton and people like that, but he was obviously willing to sort of do a shake-up to make the sport progress forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely felt stale for a lot of years, and then it felt like there was a big change.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot very often you can go straight to the CEO in a big business, and that was literally it\u2026 I know we had something with the podcast that we wanted to ask him about, you texted him, and he replied straight away\u2026 he was definitely an operator, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Feeney was also a fan of Warburton\u2019s openness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of us had a good representation with him, you speak to him a lot, I speak to him a lot,\u201d said Feeney.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know he called all of us as soon as he got announced before he started, for me, that kicks you off on the right foot when someone calls you three weeks before they start, I\u2019ve never really had anyone from Supercars reach out \u2013 \u2018Hey, I\u2019m stoked to be in, let\u2019s have a chat\u2019, and you just had a good conversation with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could go to him with anything, (for instance) if you had a problem with where you parked, you could talk to him and he would get it sorted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, Kostecki hopes that the benchmark set by Warburton can be carried on in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found it was a bit sort of weird how it happened all within one day, I was talking to him the day before, and then it all came out that they were parting ways,\u201d said Kostecki.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a little bit of a bad look when a new CEO comes in and doesn\u2019t last too long.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s obviously a lot to being a CEO that we wouldn\u2019t understand, but the communication from him was second to none.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny time he would get back to you straight away, and if he couldn\u2019t answer, he would follow up\u2026 everyone that has worked with him regarded him quite highly, because he communicates really well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope moving forward that they can keep that up, because it has made a big difference in our sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interim CEO Barclay Nettlefold has noted that numerous candidates have already come forward as a search for a replacement kicks off.<\/a><\/p>\n

Top 5: Moments from the Vault<\/p>\n

With thanks to Shell V-Power, the opening season of The Undercut wraps up with five forgotten moments from the vault!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEADING drivers Will Brown, Broc Feeney and Brodie Kostecki have noted the open lines of communication the driver…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-377689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}