MOTORSPORT: The year of the Supercars underdog

Ten years after Betty Klimenko’s Erebus Motorsport outfit made a bold entrance to Australian touring car racing, the Coca-Cola Racing by Erebus team broke through for its maiden driver and team titles this year, with Brodie Kostecki claiming the Repco Supercars Championship crown in 2023.

Entering the season with zero career wins to his credit, Kostecki and teammate Will Brown proved fast from the opening round and placed on the podium at 10 of the season’s 12 events.

Kostecki broke through at Albert Park with a pair of wins, with further victories coming at Sydney Motorsport Park and Shell V-Power Motorsport Park in South Australia, where the 26-year-old swept the three-race weekend – a feat that set up his ultimate championship charge.

Second place in the major enduros at Sandown and Bathurst alongside David Russell were important, with the only blemishes in Kostecki’s season coming with lowly finishes in three races at Symmons Plains, Hidden Valley and Townsville.

Elsewhere in the Erebus camp, Brown was in the thick of title calculations through to the eighth round in South Australia, where a series of tough results saw him land fifth in the final run placings.

But Brown is on the move to Red Bull Ampol Racing in 2024, replacing the NASCAR-bound Shane van Gisbergen, who rocked the US stockcar establishment with a win on debut in July.

The Supercars season, however, provided a rollercoaster ride for the three-time champion.

After being disqualified due to a technical breach from the season-opener in Newcastle, SvG partook in a silent protest with the media and had crashes at the Australian Grand Prix and Symmons Plains, before his battles with the quirky steering on the new Chevrolet Camaro required the Triple Eight squad to press a fresh chassis into service mid-year.

Wins, however, came for van Gisbergen in Newcastle, Albert Park, Wanneroo, Sydney Motorsport Park and, importantly, at the Bathurst 1000, where he and Richie Stanaway dominated proceedings.

His championship charge unravelled in Adelaide with a double DNF, bringing to an end to one of the most dominant eras in the history of the sport.

SvG’s teammate Broc Feeney was third for the season, having registered wins in Albert Park, Wanneroo, Symmons Plains and Sandown.

The Chevy domination at the front of the field was in contrast to the parity battle faced by Ford, which won only two of the first 24 races of the season.

However, when the Blue Oval was handed concessions post-Bathurst, victories came in the final four races of the year, with an Adelaide sweep crushing the opposition.

Controversy was never far away from the new Gen3 platform.

Outside of parity, a string of fires in the Ford camp was an early-season negative, while the platform’s cost and repairability were also issues that came under the spotlight.

As far as the racing was concerned, highlights included a stout battle between van Gisbergen and Kostecki on Saturday in Perth, as well as close finishes between Cam Waters and van Gisbergen plus David Reynolds and Kostecki on the Gold Coast.

The 2024 Repco Supercars Championship kicks off on February 25 with the Thrifty Bathurst 500, one week on from the Repco Bathurst 12 Hour, which is scheduled for February 18.

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