Brodie Kostecki claimed his maiden Supercars victory in Melbourne this evening by taking a hectic, shortened Race 2 in Melbourne.
James Courtney did well in the time available to take second whilst Shane van Gisbergen finished third.
A lengthened Formula 3 qualifying session for several red flag interventions meant a timed finish was the most likely result. This was indeed the case with only eight laps of the scheduled 15 completed. The majority of those were under Safety Car.
Right from the get-go it was apparent the series was in for a tough afternoon, the shortened race forced to start with a flag drop due to the starting lights failing.
Will Brown was the better of the starters and took the lead into Turn 1 following a great launch as soon as the flag dropped. Kostecki was able to follow through shortly after to push van Gisbergen to third only for the Kiwi to fight back and retake second several corners later.
David Reynolds was the cause of the first caution, a tight mid-field seeing him pushed wide into the Turn 1 gravel and becoming beached.
There was also trouble for Nick Percat under caution as flames became visible above his front left. He was able to return to the lane quickly for the fire to be extinguished.
Severe damage is evident under his hood and the cause of the fire is unknown.
Racing resumed again at the start of Lap 4 with van Gisbergen quickly challenging Brown for top spot. Running off-line hurt his chances and saw him instead dropping back several places to sixth.
In this intense battle, Courtney pushed through to second whilst Kostecki took the lead.
Mandatory stops were again a feature of the race with the event declared wet as drizzle appeared just before the start.
Macauley Jones and Mark Winterbottom had both stopped under the first yellow and looked a possibility for race success only for them to require to pit again to fall within the window.
Several cars came in for their stops on laps five and six only for Jack Le Broq to hit the wall at Turn 7 on Lap 7 and trigger a second Safety Car.
Those who had come in earlier lost out on this, including Andre Heimgartner and Matt Payne who had been 12th and 11th respectively before they came in.
The race was never able to resume with Kostecki emerging first from the lane to follow the Safety Car for a lap to take victory over Courtney and van Gisbergen.
Broc Feeney finished fourth, one spot to the good of championship leader Chaz Mostert. Anton de Pasquale, Brown, Bryce Fullwood, Thomas Randle, and James Golding rounded out the top 10.
Heimgartner was classified 18th and Payne 19th.
Victory for Kostecki has been a long coming
Supercars return tomorrow for two timed qualifying sessions and a race. Qualifying begins at 11.05 am, and the race begins at 7.30pm.
