Tasmania Supercars: Brown wins, drama for title contenders

The two contenders, who came into the weekend first and second in the standings, were hit early in the race, both Kostecki and Mostert caught up in adjacent, but separate, incidents.

Kostecki had made a strong start, working his way up to second behind teammate Brown by the third lap.

However, his race unravelled at the hairpin on that lap when he was initially nudged from behind by Jack Le Brocq before side contact with Cam Waters, who was trying to sneak into second.

The Waters contact broke the front-left steering arm on Kostecki's car, forcing him into the pits for five laps.

Seconds later Mostert ended up facing the wrong way after being tipped into a spin by Broc Feeney.

That left Mostert with a broken steering rack, out of the race and unimpressed with Feeney – particularly when the incident was cleared by race control.

"It's very early on in the race and some young guys are a little bit keen to try and get their nose maybe where its not supposed [to be]," he told the Fox Sports broadcast. "Im pretty disappointed to see no further action [from race control] because I'm out of the race."

Out front Brown continued to lead the field, while the early drama was great news for the likes of Waters, Andre Heimgartner and Shane van Gisbergen who filtered up to second, third and fourth.

Waters and Heimgartner were the first of that lead group to pit on lap 21, Heimgartner jumping Waters in the process.

Brown then followed suit a lap later, resuming ahead of Heimgartner and Waters while van Gisbergen took over the lead of the race.

The reigning champion went four laps longer before taking his mandatory service, slotting back into what was effectively fourth place.

The leaders then settled into a rhythm for the second stint, Brown leading Heimgartner by just under a second, Waters drifting back and van Gisbergen recovering from being undercut on his fresher rubber.

As the race wore on it became two separate battles, Brown and Heimgartner left to duke it out for the win.

But while Heimgartner proved stubborn he couldn't quite get close enough to Brown, the Erebus driver winning by six-tenths.

"Andre was hustling at the end; I could see he was catching me a bit, I was just trying to save my rear tyres," Brown explained. "It was definitely squirming around a bit at the end.

"I knew once I got off the line [at the start] and saw the guys fighting behind me, that's what I needed to get into the lead and stay out there and watch for the undercut. Overall, I'm just ecstatic."

The battle for third was a thriller, van Gisbergen running down Waters with his superior tyre condition.

He got to the back of Waters on the very last lap, before getting under the Monster Mustang at the hairpin to set up a run down the back straight.

Van Gisbergen was then able to run Waters wide at turn 6 to nab third place.

Waters finished fourth, the only Mustang in the top eight, ahead of Scott Pye, Tim Slade, Le Brocq and Cam Hill.

Nick Percat had a strong race to finish ninth after starting 13th while Thomas Randle came from even further back to finish 10th.

Kostecki, meanwhile, was forced to make another late stop with his wounded Camaro and was ultimately classified 23rd.

He was able to retain the series lead, although his margin was cut from 100 points to 74 points.

Mostert's DNF was more costly, the Walkinshaw driver dropping from second to fourth in the standings behind van Gisbergen and Brown.

The Tasmania SuperSprint continues with two qualifying sessions and two more races tomorrow.

Cla	Driver	Car	Gap
1	Will Brown	Chevrolet
2	Andre Heimgartner	Chevrolet	0.6857
3	Shane van Gisbergen	Chevrolet	4.7889
4	Cameron Waters	Ford Mustang GT	5.3750
5	Scott Pye	Chevrolet	14.7793
6	Tim Slade	Chevrolet	19.2235
7	Jack Le Brocq	Chevrolet	19.5983
8	Cameron Hill	Chevrolet	19.9978
9	Nick Percat	Ford Mustang GT	21.7458
10	Thomas Randle	Ford Mustang GT	23.1138
11	Will Davison	Ford Mustang GT	23.2559
12	Mark Winterbottom	Chevrolet	23.4571
13	Anton De Pasquale	Ford Mustang GT	25.5472
14	James Golding	Chevrolet	25.9303
15	Matthew Payne	Ford Mustang GT	29.2402
16	David Reynolds	Ford Mustang GT	30.0452
17	Jack Smith	Chevrolet	30.3807
18	Broc Feeney	Chevrolet	30.7296
19	Bryce Fullwood	Chevrolet	33.0291
20	Todd Hazelwood	Ford Mustang GT	33.0567
21	Declan Fraser	Ford Mustang GT	34.9223
22	Macauley Jones	Chevrolet	35.1340
23	Brodie Kostecki	Chevrolet	6 Laps
24	James Courtney	Ford Mustang GT	7 Laps
	Chaz Mostert	Ford Mustang GT	40 Laps
View full results