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Tough-talking Erebus Motorsport boss Barry Ryan warned that Shane van Gisbergen has drawn “a line in the sand” with his attack on Brodie Kostecki in their fight to the finish in Saturday’s opening race of the Perth SuperSprint.
Before Erebus lodged a protest over van Gisbergen’s victory, Ryan criticised the reigning Supercars champion’s aggressive tactics as he questioned the bad sportsmanship warning given to Kostecki in the heat of the battle.
In his efforts to overtake Kostecki, van Gisbergen repeatedly rammed the rear of the race-leading Coca-Cola Racing Camaro in the final stages of the 42-lap sprint race at Wanneroo Raceway.
Ryan was aggrieved by the damaging assault, which he cautioned would earn retribution.
“No, I’m not [happy],” he told Speedcafe. “Shane was trying to get past, so he’s entitled to race. But he’s not entitled to unload people. That’s the thing that pisses me off.
“At least there’s a line in the sand now and Shane can expect it next time Brodie’s behind him. So, hopefully, next time that happens, it gets reversed and the same thing gets told (a warning) to Shane.”
While he understood why van Gisbergen raced so hard, Ryan maintained that Kostecki’s robust defence didn’t warrant a bad sportsmanship warning.
“Oh, that’s just Shane,” he shrugged.
“We all know that and the only thing I’ve got a problem with Brodie getting done for bad sportsmanship for blocking. It wasn’t blocking with three laps to go.
“The rule says you’re not allowed to weave under brakes. Brodie was going around the inside of the corner. It was slow, but it was well within the rules.
“What Shane was doing was upsetting Brodie’s ability to drive the car properly, so that was more against the rules. Brodie’s driving was judged as bad sportsmanship, but that’s good racing, that’s what we want.
“If it was 10 laps to go, Brodie would have been smart enough to pull out [of the fight] and consolidate second.”
Ryan revealed that Brodie wasn’t told of the bad sportsmanship warning.
“We didn’t even tell him,” he said.
“It was two laps to go, so it wasn’t even worth telling him. He was driving what we thought was a good race. Anybody that thought it wasn’t should probably go and play tiddlywinks or something.”
Regardless of the resulting friction, Ryan is looking forward to further race-deciding clashes between Kostecki and van Gisbergen – with future outcomes in his rising star driver’s favour.
“Hopefully, it turns around for us a couple times,” he mused.
Notwithstanding the outcome of the protest, Kostecki still leads the drivers’ championship and Erebus also tops the teams’ table, despite Will Brown’s qualifying induced race woes, finishing 16th.
Ryan is excited by the prospect that Coca-Cola Racing will continue to upstage Triple Eight as the leading Chevrolet squad and serious threat to Red Bull Ampol Racing’s crowns.
“It’s great,” he smiled. “We just hope we can do it all year.”
He added that the team had proved it was a Gen3 force after being at or near the front of the field in pre-season testing and the first three events on a variety of circuits.
“The best thing is we’ve done it at three completely different tracks now,” Ryan said.
“Really, five including Sydney Motorsport Park and Winton [tests], so we’ve got a lot of confidence now in what we’re doing with our set-up and the drivers are getting more confident, so fingers crossed we can keep the ball rolling.”
