A SWEET and sour Saturday qualifying for Erebus Motorsport at the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500 has ended with Brodie Kostecki $10,000 richer.
Kostecki has been guaranteed the honour of ARMOR ALL Pole Champion for scoring the most poles this season after teammate Will Brown failed to make the Top 10 Shootout.
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Championship leader Kostecki has seven poles in 2023 to date, ahead of Brown (four) and Triple Eight teammates Shane van Gisbergen and Broc Feeney (three each).
Brown now only has three chances left to add to his tally after his Camaro succumbed to a gear-selection issue in today’s qualifying.
Even if Brown scores the three remaining poles, he’ll lose out to Kostecki on a countback of second-placings.
Van Gisbergen made the Shootout and can also still equal Kostecki, but would likewise fall to a countback.
Feeney joined Brown in missing today’s Shootout and is out of the running.
It marks the first time Kostecki has won the Pole Champion Award and he is the fourth different driver in as many seasons to do so.
Cam Waters, Anton De Pasquale and Scott McLaughlin took the honour in the last three seasons, with Ford’s run having stretched back to 2017.
While the Pole Champion accolade will officially be awarded next month in Adelaide, Kostecki’s focus is firmly on the task at hand.
Kostecki booked a Shootout berth with third in qualifying, two places ahead of key title rival van Gisbergen.
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“I’m stoked to be in the Shootout,” said Kostecki of his qualifying session.
“We didn’t have a great day yesterday, just didn’t execute the session properly and had a bit of traffic on my green run. But the car felt ok in race trim.
“It’s pretty hard to tell around here with the weather yesterday, but stoked to get that lap straight up just in case something happened at the end there.
“I made a bit of a mistake on the last corner and just saw Cam was three tenths up through the back chicane.”
The Top 10 Shootout will kick-off at 1:05pm local time.
