The reigning Bathurst 1000 winner was part of two high-profile incidents in New Zealand relating to Craig Baird’s push for harder racing in Supercars.
The first was a panel-bashing battle for a win in the second of the Saturday sprint races with Chaz Mostert, with a forceful Mostert ultimately winning the race while escaping any penalty.
On Sunday Kostecki found himself battling the other Walkinshaw Andretti United Mustang of Ryan Wood for the lead on the opening lap.
This time there was a penalty for Wood after he ran Kostecki wide.
Kostecki quickly made his confusion over what he perceived as inconsistency known, with driving standards advisor Baird having since explained his decision making via Speedcafe.
Kostecki has now moved to further clarify his overall stance on the new-for-2025 racing freedoms on Supercars’ Drivers Only podcast.
According to the Dick Johnson Racing recruit it is a positive move for the sport, however he feels further clarity on what is and isn’t allowed is required.
It should be noted that due to a scheduling clash, Kostecki was one of a few drivers that missed an extraordinary meeting called by Baird to discuss the racing rules on the eve of the Taupo Super440.
“I think it’s pretty cool that the racing’s opened up, but I think it seems to be changing a lot round to round for me, with what’s allowed and what’s not,” said Kostecki.
“Hopefully going forward we can get a bit of clarity on that, because it’s difficult knowing what’s allowed and what’s not.”
Jaxon Evans, another of the podcast guests, outlined concerns over how leniency in the opening laps makes payback harder to execute later in the race.
Kostecki agreed with that sentiment, while calling for the racing rules themselves to be simplified, rather than existing rules being re-interpreted.
“I’m all for hard racing, but it’s like what Jaxon just said there – if you give it, you should be able to give it back, but you’re protected by the rules,” he explained.
“So there’s a lot of respect that goes out the window out on the track because there’s this little, hidden… we’re still racing to the same rules that we’ve had for the last 10 years, but we’re just choosing to bend them at certain times for better TV.
“It would be nice if we could maybe change some of them and I think the racing could be better again.
“We’ve got such a passionate fan base, and it’s great that we’ve actually opened it up a bit to allow for more racing.”
The topic came up again later when a listener questioned posed what radical change they would like to see implemented by Supercars.
“I grew up in America racing over there where the racing is quite a bit different, where there’s pretty much no rules, effectively,” said Kostecki.
“And I’m pretty happy that the racing has gotten better here, but I would like almost less rules again. That would be better in my opinion, because I think we’d have more respect out there.
“So I think yeah, more harder racing would be good and probably less rules and less bending.”
Kostecki concluded the explanation with: “Bairdo does a pretty good job for 90 percent of it, but I don’t want to go down to the Finals and be racing for a championship and we have a race like [Taupo with Mostert] where it’s so confusing as to what it is.
“And we had the Woody penalty on the Sunday, which I didn’t even say anything on the radio [about] because I put myself out on the marbles and I drove off the track like a numpty.
“I was pretty upset at myself. But then he got a penalty, and I was just so perplexed at the whole thing.”
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