Supercars championship leader Brodie Kostecki is a man on a mission.
The 25-year-old is embarking on his third Supercars campaign, and he’s started with a bang. In the space of just two rounds he’s doubled his career podium tally to 10 and his pole count to two.
Most importantly, though, he collected his long-awaited maiden victory, taking the chequered flag on a chaotic Friday night at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.
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But it was a race with a sort of asterisk. Conditions were slippery, and the action was chaotic. Time certainty meant the chequered flag fell after eight laps, only four of which were at racing speed.
“Even though we crossed the line first, it was a bit of a rubbish way to get my first win,” Kostecki tells Fox Sports. “It didn‘t really feel like a race win to me.”
But Kostecki may be underrating the importance of the victory — not for its value as the first of his main-game career but because of how he won it.
In the few racing laps completed that night, two of the highlights were three-way battles between Kostecki, teammate Will Brown and Shane van Gisbergen.
Van Gisbergen had started from pole but was harassed off the line until Brown found a way through. Kostecki was lining up for his shot at the reigning champion when the first safety car was deployed.
A few laps later, with racing back underway, he took his chance in an all-in brawl that saw him jump Brown for the lead — but only after both bullied SVG to the edge of the track with the kind of moves the Kiwi usually pushes onto other drivers to bend them to his will.
The tables had been turned.
“Our team wasn’t really in the same league as what his team were last year, so we weren‘t really able to have any good battles with him,” Kostecki says. “But this year’s been a different story.”
Kostecki’s bizarre first win was no anomaly, and he backed it up with a more comprehensive second victory the next day, leading every lap to defeat Van Gisbergen again.
Third place in the final race on the Sunday was the lowest he finished all weekend — in fact only once all year has he finished off the podium, with sixth on Sunday in Newcastle his worst result to date.
But if you ask the now two-time winner, the potential has always been there. It just needed to meet the right opportunity.
“I think it’s the whole category having a big reset and everyone getting the same equipment to start the season with, to be honest,” he says when asked where the step-up in performance has come from. “That’s really what I‘d have to put it down to.
“Our team’s done a really good job so far this year with this new car, and we‘re slowly just ticking boxes as we go and just trying to minimise mistakes.
“I just race hard, really. If the car’s there, I can take care of the rest.”
‘THE ATMOSPHERE IN THE TEAM IS AWESOME’
A full-blooded title campaign would be the culmination of Erebus manager Barry Ryan’s big bet on rookies Kostecki and Brown three years ago, an all-new line-up that had to fill the shoes of outbound race winners Dave Reynolds and Anton de Pasquale.
There have been plenty of flashes of brilliance in the last two years, albeit the young combination understandably lacked the consistency to string them together.
But the two drivers have grown into the series, and now in their third year together at the same team, they’ve taken more keenly to the challenge of Gen3 than arguably any other line-up — though Kostecki denies the car suits his American-derived hustling style better than anyone else.
“Probably I think this car suits everyone, really,” he says. “I haven‘t really found it that much different than last year — it is different, but I’ve already forgotten how the old car drove and just focused on this car as soon as I got my hands on it.
“The old car’s never going to come back, so it’s just more about pushing along with what you‘ve got and making the most of it.
“That‘s what I’ve done my whole career and that’s what I’ll continue doing.”
And an Erebus title challenge would be an alluring prospect.
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Kostecki’s round win in Melbourne, pipping Van Gisbergen by five points, was already packed with feel-good value, bringing the Larry Perkins Trophy to a team with such a strong connection to the eponymous Supercars winner and F1 racer.
“Our team boss Barry has a pretty big history with it — obviously working under the Larry Perkins is where his career started out from in Supercars racing,” he says. “I knew it meant a lot to our team, and our team has visited Larry‘s workshop multiple times and Barry has run the team sort of like how Larry used to back in the day.
“I knew it meant a whole deal to him and also to our team members as well.
“The atmosphere in the team is awesome. Everyone‘s put in a lot of work over the Christmas and New Year’s period and the team didn’t really get too much time off, so it was great to be able to reward them with wins and poles so far.
“Both cars have been running up the front as well as — not only just me but Will — so it‘s been a great atmosphere so far.”
Taking home the Larry Perkins Trophy also came with the bonus of winning Kostecki the first championship lead of his Supercars career and the orange numbers that go with it.
It’s an undeniable sign of his and the team’s potential this year, but the West Australian isn’t willing to read too much into the early form book on the flight to Perth, particularly given the scope for improvement in the early months of Gen3.
“It‘s really cool going to my home round with the orange numbers, but they can come off as fast as they can go on,” he says.
“I think you‘ll see different teams take big leaps forward throughout the next couple rounds, and you might see some of the frontrunning guys being mixed up a little bit.
“Everyone’s probably 70 per cent at the moment — there‘s definitely a lot of learning to do with this car. It’s going to come slowly; it’ll just come round by round.
“It‘s been an interesting start to season so far, but I think everyone will catch up to the front teams and the racing will be really close and really tight in the next few rounds.”
But Kostecki has no doubt he can be in the mix.
“I don‘t see any reason why we shouldn’t be up the front,” he says. “If we’re not, we’re just not doing a good enough job.”
PERTH SUPERSPRINT
“Perth‘s a pretty simple track,” Kostecki says. “We had some decent runs there last year, so I’m feeling confident we can continue the form.”
Wanneroo Raceway is among the shortest circuits on the calendar, but that makes it deceptively simple — it only takes one mistake to be off the pace, with the track giving you no other place to make up for lost time.
The big braking zone into the final corner is a key performance differentiator, while turns 6 and 7 are the main passing opportunities.
The tweaked schedule is a potential curveball, with practice coming in the form of a single 90-minute session late on Friday afternoon. Given lap times are sub-60 seconds, teams won’t want for laps by the end of it, but it does mean they have only one window to gauge track conditions ahead of the weekend.
HOW CAN I WATCH IT?
The practice, qualifying and the races at the Perth SuperSprint are live and ad-break free during racing on Kayo and Fox Sports.
Practice starts at 4:25pm (AEST) on Friday.
Saturday starts with three-part qualifying at 1:10pm followed by the first 42-lap race at 5:45pm.
Dual 15-minute qualifying sessions start Sunday at 11:15am and 11:40am followed by races at 1:45pm and 5:45pm.
