Ryan: Returning Kostecki has 'done his homework'

Erebus Motorsport CEO Barry Ryan says a motivated Brodie Kostecki has needed no added pushing to get up to speed for his first Supercars race in five months.

Kostecki, the 2023 Supercars champion, will start his first race since last November’s season finale on April 20 at the ITM Taupo Super400.

The 26-year-old cut his first Supercar laps in a Winton Motor Raceway test day on Wednesday, alongside teammate Jack Le Brocq and Erebus crew.

Todd Hazelwood, who substituted for Kostecki at the first two rounds, was also on site at Winton to assist Kostecki.

While Wednesday was Kostecki’s first track time in an Erebus Gen3 Camaro in 2024, the driver has been preparing away from the track, cutting laps around Norwell Motorplex and spending ample time on simulators.

For Ryan, it was a marker of Kostecki’s self-motivation.

"He's just done his homework in the background, prepared himself, spent a lot of time with Paul at Norwell, on his sim, all the stuff that makes him as good as he is,” Ryan told Supercars.com at Winton.

"You don't need to push Brodie. He pushes himself and pushes us hard enough that we don't need to push him.”

In Kostecki’s absence, Hazelwood raced to ninth in the points after the first two rounds, and will return with Erebus at this year’s enduros.

Already 575 points down, Kostecki’s hopes of defending his title are a long shot — the biggest overturned deficit to win a title is 214 points.

However, should Kostecki return to his race-winning form of 2023, the reigning champ could throw the cat amongst the pigeons and disrupt this year's ongoing championship fight, which has former Erebus driver Will Brown leading Triple Eight teammate Broc Feeney.

“It's sort of back to normal, we would have liked to start the year like that but unfortunately we couldn’t. It's just great to see Brodie happy and healthy and ready to go,” Ryan said.

"It's just like we left Adelaide at the end of last year, it's always a good vibe here and we all know each other really well, we've been together a long time.

"Everybody's just ready to go. Got the #1 on the car. It's pretty exciting.”

Erebus is fifth in the teams' championship standings heading to the inaugural Taupō event on April 19-21.

Fans are encouraged to secure their ticket options, with Saturday and Sunday general admission and grandstand allocations exhausted.