Erebus Motorsport may well face the “tricky” scenario of a double stack in today’s Penrite Oil Sandown 500 after locking out the front row.
Will Brown put one Coca-Cola Camaro on pole position while championship leader Brodie Kostecki saw to it that the other will also start on the front row for this afternoon’s 161-lap race.
Given their form throughout practice, and thus far in the 2023 Supercars season, there is no reason to expect that they will not be vying for victory at Sandown, and that could mean Cars #9 and #99 being in close proximity on the race track.
Asked by Speedcafe how intense the battle for pit priority will be, Kostecki had a humorous response.
“Well, Will’s going to a different team next year…,” he quipped, referring to Brown’s impending move to Triple Eight Race Engineering.
“Nah, I’m only joking,” he added.
“That’s actually going to be quite a tricky one.
“Obviously, the pit stops are going to be quite long with the fuel load that we’ve got to take on, so it’ll just be one of those things.
“It’ll be same for everyone and if the Safety Car falls, there’ll be a bunch of cars that will gain spots and a bunch of cars will lose spots.
“We’ll just see how the race plays out; it’s just going to be one of those things.”
As Kostecki alluded to, pit stops could be as long as a minute, given the larger fuel cell and slower flow rate for Gen3.
While there is the saving grace that rivals who have to double-stack will also be waiting longer in pit lane for a team-mate to be serviced, Erebus would have more to lose if its cars are, say, first and second when a Safety Car is called.
Furthermore, with so many unknowns and thus the potential for wildly diverging strategy calls, including short filling, the uncertainty of a double stack represents a set of variables which the quickest team in the field would not appreciate.
Of course, it is possible that a surprise contender emerges when the focus switches from qualifying pace to race pace, but the former has certainly been no problem for Erebus this weekend.
Kostecki claimed provisional pole, with Brown second in that session, before the order was reversed in the Top 10 Shootout.
Kostecki’s somewhat wide run through the Turn 2/Turn 3 complex during the one-lap dash would be decisive, but he shook off any disappointment from missing out on Saturday bragging rights.
“I’m actually quite happy,” declared the West Australian.
“To have two Coca-Cola cars on the front row is really cool, starting the Sandown 500, and the team has had a tremendous day.
“Obviously, being first and second in qualifying then to go back up in the shootout’s really cool.
“We’ve obviously had a lot of success this year and it’d be good to just keep the ball rolling through the enduros.”
The Warm Up starts at 10:10 local time/AEST.
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