Ryan opens up on Erebus' tough start to 2025

Erebus Motorsport CEO Barry Ryan has spoken candidly about the team's difficult start to the 2025 Repco Supercars Championship.

Having experienced the highs of beating the might of Triple Eight Race Engineering to the 2023 Supercars Teams Championship, the past season and a half has been a rollercoaster for the team.

2024 started without Will Brown, who had joined Red Bull Ampol Racing, before the highly publicised no-show of Brodie Kostecki for the opening two events of the year before his departure to Dick Johnson Racing was announced mid-season.

Engineers George Commins and Tom Moore have also joined Kostecki at DJR, whilst former Team Principal Brad Tremain departed for an opportunity in IndyCar.

Whilst Kostecki and Commins delivered a fairytale Bathurst 1000 win last year before departing, but the team finds itself at the tail of pit lane following a tough start to 2025.

Jack Le Brocq finds himself 15th in the standings, whilst rookie Cooper Murray is mired in 23rd after suffering two separate mechanical failures in Perth.

"There's no hiding behind it, the last 18 months have been really hard on our team," admitted a frank Ryan at the Friday team owners press conference.

"Losing key people, it took us a long time to rebuild. Our last rebuild was 2021 with Brodie and Will, and no one believed really in that, and we won a championship two years later, and won Bathurst the year after.

"We've gone back to sort of where we were then, so it's hard on the team, and to replace people like George and Tom, and Brodie, is really hard and Brad Tremain is kicking goals in America, so that's four key people out of the team, it's really tough to replace that.

"It's going to take time, you can't hide behind that. I can only do so much, and the boys I've had there for six or seven years can only do so much.

Ryan himself has been forced into a race engineering role for Le Brocq this year, whilst Murray has former Image Racing Super2 engineer Wayne Mackie on the headsets this year.

Ryan admits his attention being diverted away from his CEO duties could be another factor in Erebus bringing up the rear of the field in the teams standings.

"We bring fresh people in, we try and train them up, and unfortunately I'm still race engineering, and I say that because I shouldn't be, I should be running the business.

"Until we can get the right person to do that role, which we're trying to promote from within, we're trying to find an engineer that we can just put in and we can be really successful.

However, Ryan is confident that Erebus' season can turn around, with Bathurst a particular focus for the CEO. Erebus Super2 juniors Jarrod Hughes and Jobe Stewart will pair Le Brocq and Murray respectively.

"It's tough, we'll get there again. We're confident in our team, and we've got a great bunch of loyal staff there that want to stay on and want to see us get there again and win championships and win Bathurst's.

"We're still going to go to Bathurst trying to win this year, we'll have the belief and we'll have the drivers that can do it."