Chaz Mostert and Brodie Kostecki have offered sharply differing accounts of the late-race contact at the ITM Christchurch Super440 that handed the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy to Broc Feeney and earned Mostert a 30-second post-race penalty.
Matt Payne won Race 13 outright for Penrite Racing, leading home teammate Kai Allen for the team's first ever 1-2 finish. But the Sunday spotlight quickly shifted to the clash between Kostecki and Mostert during a final three-lap dash, with the Jason Richards Trophy — awarded across the New Zealand round — still mathematically in play.
The trigger was a move by Kostecki at Turn 2 in his Dick Johnson Racing Mustang. The 2023 champion got down the inside of Mostert's Walkinshaw TWG Racing entry as the pair braked, but the move ended in wheel-to-wheel contact at Turn 3 that pitched Kostecki into a wild ride across the track.
"I got a fair way up the inside and I think he saw that I was coming pretty late and tried to turn in but I was already up a fair way," Kostecki said. He maintained that he had given Mostert sufficient room on exit. "I didn't run him off the road on exit or anything. I gave him a car length."
His engineer George Commins captured the team's response on the radio in real time. "What a joke. What the hell was that for?" Commins barked, the audio later confirming the level of frustration on the DJR pit wall.
Mostert, predictably, framed the incident very differently. The Walkinshaw veteran argued that Kostecki had simply been too ambitious into Turn 2 and that the second-corner contact was a consequence of an off-line move that compromised both drivers.
"Brodie was pretty adventurous down there at [turn] two and bowled me wide," Mostert said. "We made wheel-to-wheel contact and the thing just spat me sideways."
The pair spoke directly after their respective interviews, with commentator Garth Tander noting on the broadcast that the post-race exchange amounted to two drivers simply holding incompatible views of what had just happened. There was no flashpoint between the two men face-to-face — but no agreement either.
The stewards ultimately handed Mostert a 30-second penalty for his role in the contact, a sanction that proved decisive in the broader picture: it confirmed Feeney as the recipient of the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy, awarded to the highest-scoring driver across the Christchurch round.
The trophy itself had looked destined for Ryan Wood until a brutal late mechanical intervention. The Toyota Supercars rookie was on course to clinch the silverware until his engine let go with seven laps to run, gifting the equation back to the chasing pack and setting the stage for the Mostert-Kostecki flashpoint.
For both drivers, the Christchurch weekend now leaves a complicated taste. Kostecki returns home with a strong race performance ultimately undone by contact, while Mostert leaves with a penalty on the books and another race-defining clash to discuss with his team. Feeney, for his part, walks away with a piece of New Zealand silverware few were expecting him to be holding when the lights went out for Race 13.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/what-a-joke-mostert-and-kostecki-trade-blame-after-christchurch-clash). Visit for full coverage.*
