Brodie Kostecki believes a win in his rookie Repco Supercars Championship season is an attainable goal after his first hit out at Bathurst.
Kostecki claimed finishes of 11th and 12th at the Mount Panorama 500, but was a standout in Saturday qualifying where he comfortably made it into the Top 10 Shootout with the sixth fastest time.
The Perth-born pilot isn’t downplaying his ambition to win in 2021, though it’s a feat that hasn’t been achieved since 2013.
Chaz Mostert was the last rookie to win in the championship, claiming victory for Dick Johnson Racing at Queensland Raceway in only his 15th race.
That same year, Scott McLaughlin claimed two wins with Garry Rogers Motorsport, first on home soil at Pukekohe Park and then at Queensland Raceway.
The last time Erebus Motorsport fielded a rookie was in 2017 with Anton De Pasquale, who finished 20th in the drivers’ championship with a season-best seventh at Phillip Island.
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Kostecki said he’s keen to shake off his rookie status with a breakthrough win.
“I’m never satisfied if I’m not up the front,” Kostecki told Speedcafe.com.
“As much as everyone calls me a rookie, I just want to go fast.
“Will [Brown, Erebus Motorsport team-mate] and myself have been around now for a while. Will has co-driven for a couple of years now and I’ve done wildcards with my family.
“We do have a label, but I think we’re holding ourselves at a higher level.”
Kostecki said that while his two finishes outside the top 10 at Mount Panorama wasn’t what he desired, his outright pace has him brimming with confidence that a win is possible.
“We sort of unloaded from the workshop really well and the guys did a really good job of making the cars fast straight out of the gate,” he said of the season-opener at Mount Panorama.
“Big kudos to the engineering group. We put in a lot of effort in the off-season to try and get the cars a bit quicker.
“We just want to win races this year. We’re not going to do it right this second but I think if we can go back and learn a few things off this weekend I think Sandown coming up should be a good one for us.
“Getting into the shootout on Saturday was really cool, the team was really pumped about it,” he added.
“It was a great reward for the team after spending all night putting Will’s car back together. In hindsight, if I had said two weeks ago that that would have happened I would have taken it with both hands.
“I’m pretty excited with what’s to come. We’ll go back home, put our heads together, and work out how we can go forward.”
Kostecki’s next opportunity to strike success will be at Sandown over March 20-21.
The Supercars Championship action will take in three races across the two-day event.
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