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Erebus Motorsport boss Barry Ryan says that the nature of the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit lends itself to moments such as David Reynolds’ final-lap shortcut.
It was on Lap 85 that the Grove Racing driver squirmed as he arrived at the front chicane and would straight-line that complex.
Doing so gave Reynolds slightly more breathing space when they arrived at the Turn 4 hairpin, before he took the chequered flag 0.1889s clear of Kostecki.
Ryan’s body language from the Erebus bunker suggested he was displeased with what had transpired, although the squad did not request any sort of official review of the incident.
He was asked by Speedcafe for his thoughts on the matter in the post-race press conference and responded, “It’s a difficult one.
“This track lends itself to having a bit of a lend of the rules if you want to.
“Obviously, Dave knew there was one lap to go and Brodie was going to pass him at the hairpin, so he just drove straight.
“It’s just what you can do with the rules and he had no [track limits] warning for the whole race, so he could get away with it.
“But, Brodie could have used the same trick and didn’t, but that’s just the nature of this track.”
Reynolds had indeed not been issued a bad sportsmanship flag for track limits breaches.
He attributed the wobble to a disturbance of the airflow over his Penrite Mustang’s rear wing given how closely Kostecki was following.
Notably, Reynolds had also cut the front chicane on Lap 71, in another instance when Car #26 broke loose with the #99 Coca-Cola Camaro right behind it.
“They’ve got a bit more straight-line speed, so they can tow up behind me and, in the braking zone, take our aero off us,” he said on Fox Sports.
“As soon as I turned in, I just lost the rear, so I did my best job to make the corner and, unfortunately, that’s just this track.
“I didn’t have any bad sportsmanship flags or anything to worry about so I could have cut the kerbs and used that to my advantage.
“So, I did, thankfully, but that’s all set up during those first 80 laps where you’re trying to manage your car and manage the black flag and everything like that.
“I feel a little bit funny about it because I’d be annoyed on Brodie’s side that it happened like that but it doesn’t bother me.”
The other controversy involving Reynolds and Kostecki was the peppering which the latter gave to the rear bar of the #26 Mustang, particularly at the final corner of the track.
Ryan has been vocal about instances this year when Shane van Gisbergen has barged into the rear of Erebus Camaros, specifically at Perth’s Wanneroo and also at Sydney Motorsport Park.
He believes Kostecki’s driving was in line with the precedent set at Wanneroo, when Erebus had unsuccessfully lodged a protest following van Gisbergen’s controversial pass of Kostecki in Race 7 of the season.
“It was exactly the same situation as Perth,” stated Ryan.
“So, the rules are pretty clear that, the corner before, you can’t rub someone up and then pass them on the next corner.
“But, if you rub them up for the lap before and wear their rear tyres out, you can have a crack at them three corners later.
“So, that was the precedent set in Perth and that’s what happened today.”
In Perth, while van Gisbergen had similarly hit the back of Kostecki’s Camaro repeatedly, the contact which occurred when he made the pass had come after he had already achieved “significant overlap” at the corner in question.
With Kostecki finishing second in Race 26 and van Gisbergen fifth, a reversal of their positions in Race 25, the former is back out to a 131-point championship lead with just the Vailo Adelaide 500 to come in 2023.
