Brodie Kostecki’s engineer George Commins believes they missed “missed the mark” on the #99 car’s set-up at the Tasmania SuperSprint.

Kostecki was mightily impressive through the first two rounds of his rookie Repco Supercars Championship campaign, highlighted by a superb Sandown podium.

Symmons Plains on the weekend presented a less straightforward task however, with Erebus Motorsport team-mate Will Brown outshining him.

Brown, the 2020 Super2 Series runner-up, qualified inside the top 10 for all three races and converted that into race finishes of ninth, fifth and 15th.

Kostecki on the other hand could only muster 15th, 22nd and 19th in three qualifying sessions, turning those starting slots into 10th, 16th and 18th respectively.

While by no means a disaster – the 23-year-old started and ended the weekend 10th in the championship – it was a tougher outing.

“We probably missed the mark a little bit with the car and a little bit of track evolution,” conceded Commins, who joined Erebus in the off-season from Kelly Racing.

“He’s still a rookie at the end of the day and we’ve got to work together and we’re still understanding each other, what he needs and what I need to change for him.

“We’ll come back better next time.”

Commins, who previously worked closely with Supercars champion and two-time Bathurst 1000 winner Rick Kelly, sees no shortage of quality in Kostecki.

“He’s very strong technically,” he added.

“He’s very strong at his repetition and being able to do long runs without making any mistakes but then when the green tyres go on he’s usually pretty good at finding the extra hundredths and getting the lap time out of it.”

Erebus sits seventh in the teams’ championship as the category prepares for the South Australian leg of the season at The Bend Motorsport Park on May 8-9.

Kostecki and Brown, plus Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Bryce Fullwood, will take part in a rookie test at The Bend this Thursday.