Pole winner Anton De Pasquale made the best of the start in cold, drizzly conditions, the Dick Johnson Racing Ford driver initially leading the Camaros of Kostecki (Erebus) and van Gisbergen (Triple Eight).
Kostecki made life hard for himself soon after, though, showing the nose on De Pasquale at Turn 3 which then compromised his exit.
That allowed van Gisbergen to charge into second place at Turn 5 before he set after the leading Mustang.
It didn't take long for van Gisbergen to charge into the lead, the Kiwi breezing past De Pasquale into Turn 3 on the third lap.
Kostecki then came under pressure from Cam Waters, who ended up on the outside exiting Turn 10 while trying to get by on lap five.
The excursion slightly wide dropped the Tickford Ford driver back to sixth as he scrambled back onto the road.
There was more action in the lead group on lap 12 when Kostecki's team-mate Will Brown charged inside Chaz Mostert (WAU Camaro) into Turn 1 to grab fourth place.
Out front van Gisbergen was able to ease away from De Pasquale across the first stint, while Kostecki steadily worked his way back under De Pasquale's rear wing.
On lap 15 Kostecki made his move, diving under De Pasquale at Turn 11 to take over second place.
Interestingly the first stint stretched almost the entirety of the race for most of the field, the top 15 all waiting until the last three laps to take their mandatory service thanks to the durability of the super soft.
De Pasquale and Brown went on the third-last lap, a slow stop for De Pasquale dropping him from third on the road right back to sixth in the order.
Van Gisbergen, Kostecki then pitted at the end of the penultimate lap, Triple Eight and Erebus taking advantage of the wet race declaration to opt for two new super softs rather than four new hard compound tyres as otherwise required by the rules.
A slightly slow stop for van Gisbergen did allow Kostecki to close up on the Kiwi leaving the lane, but the reigning champion was able to hold on to take victory by three-tenths.
"Thanks to Dunlop; normally they don't get much praise, but I think it's good that they've done a good job here," said van Gisbergen. "No tyre failures, so thank you to them.
"Again thanks to my team. What I did to the car this morning – tried to write the thing off – and to fix it it up like they did, two good qualis and then a race win, I'm stoked."
De Pasquale's issues during the stops promoted Brown to third place, while Broc Feeney (Triple Eight) used his two-tyre stop to leapfrog his way up to fourth.
That dropped Mostert to fifth ahead of De Pasquale and Waters.
Jack Le Brocq came home eighth for Matt Stone Racing, from Tickford's James Courtney and BJR's Macauley Jones, another driver to run the two-tyre strategy to make up spots.
Mostert continues to lead the series with a 31-point margin over Kostecki. Van Gisbergen, meanwhile, is now 106 points behind Mostert in seventh as he continues to make up ground following his race one Newcastle disqualification.
The Melbourne SuperSprint continues tomorrow with a second sprint race starting at 2:55pm local time.
Hazelwood disqualified from opener
Todd Hazelwood has been thrown out of the opening Supercars race at Albert Park for a technical breach.
The Blanchard Racing Team Mustang was found to be running an incorrect drop gear in its transaxle at the end of Thursday's running at the Melbourne circuit.
While the illegal ratio was a straight line disadvantage for Hazelwood, the zero tolerance approach to technical breaches means the car has been disqualified from the opening race – in which he finished last.
Hazelwood has also been demoted to rear of grid for the second race, given qualifying took place yesterday, although again he was only set to start second-last anyway.
Hazelwood will effectively be able to start fresh tomorrow when two new qualifying sessions will set the grids for the final two races of the weekend.
Supercars Albert Park - Race 1 results (19 laps)
| Cla | Driver | Car | Gap | Interval |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Shane van Gisbergen |
Chevrolet | ||
| 2 | Brodie Kostecki | Chevrolet | 0.3909 | 0.3909 |
| 3 |  Will Brown |
Chevrolet | 1.9525 | 1.5616 |
| 4 | Broc Feeney | Chevrolet | 7.3770 | 5.4245 |
| 5 | Chaz Mostert |
Ford Mustang GT | 14.2994 | 6.9224 |
| 6 | Anton De Pasquale |
Ford Mustang GT | 14.7792 | 0.4798 |
| 7 | Cameron Waters |
Ford Mustang GT | 15.1324 | 0.3532 |
| 8 | Jack Le Brocq |
Chevrolet | 15.1436 | 0.0112 |
| 9 | James Courtney |
Ford Mustang GT | 17.0477 | 1.9041 |
| 10 | Macauley Jones |
Chevrolet | 17.1765 | 0.1288 |
| 11 | Bryce Fullwood |
Chevrolet | 20.1229 | 2.9464 |
| 12 | Thomas Randle |
Ford Mustang GT | 21.9620 | 1.8391 |
| 13 | Matthew Payne | Ford Mustang GT | 23.1600 | 1.1980 |
| 14 | Nick Percat |
Ford Mustang GT | 25.8511 | 2.6911 |
| 15 | Scott Pye |
Chevrolet | 28.6819 | 2.8308 |
| 16 | Will Davison |
Ford Mustang GT | 34.1778 | 5.4959 |
| 17 | Andre Heimgartner |
Chevrolet | 34.3633 | 0.1855 |
| 18 | Cameron Hill | Chevrolet | 37.3620 | 2.9987 |
| 19 | David Reynolds |
Ford Mustang GT | 37.4694 | 0.1074 |
| 20 | Tim Slade |
Chevrolet | 40.0391 | 2.5697 |
| 21 | Mark Winterbottom |
Chevrolet | 41.2183 | 1.1792 |
| 22 | James Golding |
Chevrolet | 41.2671 | 0.0488 |
| 23 | Jack Smith |
Chevrolet | 41.5290 | 0.2619 |
| 24 | Declan Fraser | Ford Mustang GT | 46.1083 | 4.5793 |
| 25 | Todd Hazelwood |
Ford Mustang GT | 48.3739 | 2.2656 |
| View full results | ||||
