Erebus Motorsport CEO Barry Ryan has identified race strategy as an area where the Supercars championship-leading team needs to improve.
Brodie Kostecki is top of the drivers’ standings after the first three events of 2023 but Erebus is hardly a one-car team, with Will Brown sitting fourth on the points table thanks to his exploits in the other Coca-Cola Chevrolet Camaro.
Indeed, it was the latter who scored a race win during the previous event of the season at Wanneroo Raceway, with the duo collectively amassing five podiums out of a possible six.
Having delivered the squad its first ever double podium with a two-three in Race 3 of the season, at Albert Park, Kostecki and Brown went even better just two days later with a one-three in Race 5.
In Perth, it was a historic one-two in Race 8 and another two-three in Race 9, when Brown trailed Triple Eight Race Engineering’s Broc Feeney to the chequered flag.
Expectations are so high now that even that was a somewhat disappointing result.
Ryan is not concerned about how Kostecki and Brown will race each other, but sees a need to be better racing their rivals as a team.
“I guess we’re learning on the run,” he said.
“We haven’t been in this position a lot; if anything, a couple of times in ’18 [with David Reynolds and Anton De Pasquale], but not much. We’re trying to learn now how to strategically do it.
“We probably made a mess of Race 3 [of the weekend] in Perth; we could have been smarter and half-sacrificed one car and make sure we pass Broc with an undercut and then try and jump Will in front of them and stuff like that.
“It’s just stuff we’ve got to probably think about better as a two-car team and play the game a bit better, but that’s what you learn from being in this position.
“Experience will grow and we’ll get better at it, but the best thing is that both the drivers are happy for each other, and they’re both happy to do what it takes to make the team win.
“That’s probably the positive of Will and Brodie; they’re both really working together really well.”
Brown and Kostecki ran second and third for the bulk of the opening stint before the latter was into the lane on Lap 20, essentially an even-tyre strategy, and he found himself undercut by Tim Slade, who had pitted from an actual and effective fifth on Lap 11.
Brown, too, emerged behind Slade after he took service on Lap 24, with both he and Kostecki clearing the #23 PremiAir Racing entry just before Feeney’s pit stop.
Based on splits when Slade did pit, the undercut was worth at least three seconds, and while there is no certainty that Kostecki could have held Feeney at bay had he managed to jump the #88 Camaro, the Triple Eight driver would at least have had to work harder than he did for victory.
While pit strategy may need work, Erebus’ drivers have demonstrated how they can work together on the race track, such as when Brown made himself a nuisance for the Triple Eight duo in order to help Kostecki win Race 4 of the season once his hopes took a blow due to a wet track declaration.
Races 10, 11, and 12 take place this weekend at the Ned Whisky Tasmania SuperSprint, where Practice 1 starts this morning at 09:00 local time/AEST.
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