Brodie Kostecki built a champion’s season around impressive consistency and stunning qualifying speed. He backed up six race wins with 12 other podium finishes, and scored a season-high 10 pole positions, all in just his third season as a Supercars regular.
He adapted with aplomb to the new Gen3 Supercars, with lower aero grip and a lack of adaptability compared to what came before and, as he showed on home turf at Wanneroo is not prepared to be pushed around, even against more experienced rivals.
Kostecki looks likely to follow Shane van Gisbergen to NASCAR after making his Cup debut at Indianapolis, but possibly more Supercars titles beckon in the meantime.
Erebus’s new crew clicks
Alongside two new drivers for 2021 Erebus recruited fresh engineering talent to work alongside Kostecki and Will Brown. Just for good measure, it also signed two new co-drivers.
Experienced engineer George Commins made the move from what was then Kelly Racing (now Grove Racing) to work with Kostecki. Three years later he described the West Australian as the best driver he has ever worked with, which is saying something considering that Commins’ CV includes stints at Williams and Arden International, and the drivers from his past include Formula 1 stars Carlos Sainz, Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kvyat.
The other part of the title equation is Kostecki’s endurance co-driver. Supercars is unique in that it throws a curveball at the regular drivers with two endurance races, meaning that a title contender’s hopes will be literally in the hands of someone else for a minimum of 500 racing kilometres.
In his third year alongside Kostecki, co-driver David Russell played a huge role in achieving second place finishes at Sandown and Bathurst.
“He understands the car,” Russell explains. “He can pull it apart, he can put it back together. He also understands what he needs in the car as well and there’s definitely an advantage in him that having that level of understanding.”
"He’s just still punching out the lap times that he needs to, but at the same time he’s just telling the guys, 'hey, this isn’t right, what can we check?'" David Russell
Some Supercars drivers found that they had to work harder than with previous cars to get the new Gen3 machines set up for their sweet spot, while some simply drove around the issues they found race to race.
“He can do both,” says Russell who, like Kostecki, is a mechanic. “If the car’s not right, Brodie will say it’s not right but he’s still going to pluck the laps [times] out of it.
“He’s just still punching out the lap times that he needs to, but at the same time he’s just telling the guys, ‘hey, this isn’t right, what can we check?’ And he understands the pitstop time and then what time it would take to get to the reservoir, to check the brake fluid, or whatever it might be.”
Brown may be gone (to Triple Eight) but it’s probably a safe bet to expect the new Supercars champion to have the same wingmen in his corner next year.
