Triple Eight confirmed last week it will run SCT Motorsport’s Teams Racing Charter alongside its two Red Bull Ampol Racing machines from 2026 under a two-year deal.
It’s a different scenario to the last time Triple Eight ran three cars, having attracted sponsorship support to accommodate Craig Lowndes from 2016-18.
SCT is yet to confirm a driver for its Mustang although, as reported by Speedcafe on Tuesday, it’s expected to be Triple Eight’s Super2 rookie Jackson Walls.
Speaking on the Lucky Dogs podcast he co-hosts with Triple Eight driver Will Brown, Kostecki made no secret of who he thinks should have the seat.
“I think it should be Zach Bates and that’s who I thought it was going to be but, apparently, it’s Jackson Walls,” he said.
Walls has progressed through Australian Formula 4, the Toyota Racing Series, Carrera Cup and into Super2 with backing from his billionaire father Tony’s Objective Corporation.
“To jump into main game is a massive step and you better be winning a lot of races [in Super2],” said Kostecki, noting Walls has one race win this year.
“There’s a lot of talk that it’s a bought ride as well which I find pretty interesting, being Triple Eight was always such a prestigious place to go and drive for.
“The old saying was you need to treat drivers professionally, [that] was the old saying from the old boss [Roland Dane], but it’s interesting how it’s going.
“It’s a business at the end of the day but I’d find it interesting to see how the team would react with trying to find personnel to work on that car, depending on how it goes.
“We know from our time in the sport, being a good driver, you can generally bring your crew with you on the journey to success.
“It makes everyone more hungry to do better, it drives healthy competition throughout the team.
“It’s easy to get excited about Zach Bates and it’s harder to get excited about Jackson Walls.”
Brown, a close friend of Bates, said he had not officially been told who has the seat.
“I didn’t see it coming,” said Brown of Triple Eight’s expansion.
“I didn’t see that Triple Eight would run a customer car, but I do see from their point of view that it’s a business.
“So you want to keep making money to keep the business successful and support the other cars. It’s that at the end of the day.”
Triple Eight boss Jamie Whincup said last week that the expansion was partially driven by the desire to utilise resources left over from the team’s now shuttered wildcard program.
Kostecki said that “sounds like justification to me”, given the wildcard was a three-round proposition rather than a full-time entry.
Brown also noted that running a customer car could create an interesting dynamic between car crews within the Triple Eight squad.
“I’ve even seen it this year, me not getting as many results as Broc, it’s hard for the crew… watching the other car do so well,” he said.
“For our team, if you have two cars running top three and you don’t have one fifth, sixth, seventh, it’s probably not acceptable.
“So I reckon it’ll be very interesting to see who they put in the car, what happens there, the results, everything next year.”
Brown’s teammate Broc Feeney told Speedcafe on Tuesday that there remains a lot of unknowns about how the car will run.
“It’s exciting to have another car. It’s more data, it’s more eyes, it’s going to be another driver, another engineer, so there’s plenty of good that comes with it,” he said.
“I haven’t run with a third car before. I don’t think they all will have so it’s exciting. There’s a lot to unravel over the next few weeks.
“I mean, obviously driver, the team personnel that come with it, I have no idea how it runs on a race weekend. You know, everything sort of works together, so there’s lots still to play out.
“There’s a lot of smart guys in the business. I’m sure they’ve made the best decision for the team. I’m just going to drive and there’ll be another set of eyes, another bit of data to look at.”
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