Erebus Motorsport was determined to prove its Sydney Motorsport Park form was no fluke when it rolled into town for the Repco Bathurst 1000.

The South Dandenong squad shook up the pecking order when the 2021 Repco Supercars Championship resumed from a long mid-season break for a four-peat at SMP.

The team took at least one pole position or podium from each of those events, giving it barnstorming momentum heading into Bathurst.

They didn’t slow from there, Will Brown topping qualifying to snatch provisional pole, only for power steering dramas to end Car #9’s hopes of victory.

The sister #99 car picked up the slack however, Brodie Kostecki and David Russell charging to a podium finish.

Brown’s engineer Tom Moore, who like his driver was in his first full main game season as a race engineer, noted the delight at the team carrying their form across.

“It was something I was very conscious of rolling into Bathurst, we wanted to prove that we weren’t just a one-trick pony at Sydney and we could go out and do it again at a different circuit,” said Moore.

With that being proven, he has high hopes for 2022 as Brown and Kostecki return for their second top-flight seasons.

“I expect us to go strength to strength, there’s no reason why we should slow down,” said Moore.

“We don’t have anyone getting old, we don’t have anyone leaving, it’s only going to get better.”

Moore, who had filled in as David Reynolds’ race engineer during part of last year when Alistair McVean was unable to go on the road, admitted a pole, a race win and a further two podiums for Brown had blown his 2021 expectations out of the water.

But that came only after overcoming a somewhat testing first half of the season, which started on the back foot when Brown crashed heavily in the first practice session of the year.

“The whole first half of the year was challenging personally,” said Moore.

“I was still finding my feet in a new job and then as I got more comfortable with what I was doing, we started having other issues so it was important for me to keep Will upbeat.

“It doesn’t sound like a hard thing to do because he’s so chirpy all of the time but behind closed doors, he can get a bit down on himself when things go wrong.

“I always want to make sure that he’s in the best headspace possible because I know how much that can affect any race driver’s performance so that was probably one of the bigger challenges.”

Brown finished the season eighth in the championship, one position ahead of Kostecki.