Broc Feeney has cemented his Supercars Championship lead with a controlled, lights-to-flag victory in the Race 16 finale of the Tyrepower Tasmania Super 440, while the title hopes of Dick Johnson Racing's Brodie Kostecki took a serious dent in a chaotic afternoon at Symmons Plains.
The Red Bull Ampol Racing driver started from his fourth pole of the season, an effort that drew him equal with Garth Tander on the all-time poles list, and despite an initial wheel-spin at the start, he led from Turn 2 and never looked back. Feeney finished 7.3 seconds clear of Grove Racing's Matthew Payne to claim his 30th career win, tying the legendary Dick Johnson at 12th on the all-time Australian touring car victory tally.
"I'm stoked," Feeney said. "We've been working pretty hard this whole season, especially after Sydney, to get back to the top step of the podium."
The Triple Eight star described an afternoon that was anything but routine despite the dominant winning margin. "Obviously pole position led us to a great starting point, and then it was a really difficult race. With all of the strategies and everything it was really difficult," he said.
Run entirely under green flags over 84 laps with three compulsory pit stops, Race 16 was a pure strategy puzzle. Erebus Motorsport's Kai Allen produced the standout move of the day, vaulting from seventh on the grid to third by exploiting the first round of stops, holding off four-time race winner Anton De Pasquale and a recovering Will Brown.
It was at the back of the top ten where the championship narrative shifted. Kostecki had spent the morning warm-up sitting fourth and looked a genuine threat. But on his first stop, a coupling issue forced the Shell V-Power Mustang into a long-duration fuel-saving programme that the team simply could not engineer their way out of. Reports of front-tyre locking concerns followed, and Kostecki gradually slid down the order to finish 12th.
The damage to the title fight was significant. Feeney now leads the standings on 1,211 points to Payne's 1,121, while Kostecki — who entered the weekend in the championship mix — has slipped to third on 1,038 points, a 173-point hole heading to the Hidden Valley Triple Crown in June.
It capped a difficult Sunday for the New Zealander, who had also been collected on Saturday when David Reynolds lost control of his Ford and pitched Kostecki's car into Ryan Wood at the hairpin. Reynolds copped a 15-second penalty for that incident and finished 17th, leaving Kostecki to do damage limitation across both Symmons Plains races.
Behind Allen, De Pasquale executed a textbook undercut on lap 36 to leapfrog Will Brown into fourth during pit-stop cycles. Jayden Ojeda, Aaron Cameron, Ryan Wood, Chaz Mostert and Cam Waters rounded out the top ten, with Mostert's Saturday momentum failing to carry over into the finale.
The Supercars Championship now heads into a near-month-long break before reconvening at Hidden Valley Raceway in Darwin for the betr Darwin Triple Crown from June 19-21. Feeney leaves Tasmania with a three-win haul across the trip and a meaningful cushion, while Kostecki has work to do if he wants to remain in the conversation through the second half of the season.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/feeney-dominates-tasmania-finale-kostecki-title-tilt-unravels-2026). Visit for full coverage.*
