Brodie Kostecki's future in Supercars is far from certain. Photo / Photosport
Supercars is in crisis, weeks before the start of the 2024 season.
Reigning champion Brodie Kostecki has walked out on his team, Erebus Motorsport, and heavyweight Kiwi drivers have lined up to put the boot in over the handling of the melodrama.
Neither Kostecki, Erebus or Supercars have offered a solid reason for the sudden departure, with Supercars saying only that the 26-year-old would “sit out” the season opener at Bathurst on February 24-25.
At first, Supercars CEO Shane Howard suggested the choice to leave was Kostecki’s, saying: “We understand the gravity of Brodie’s decision and the challenges he may be facing at this time.”
Howard’s comments were widely interpreted to mean Kostecki was facing a problem related to his mental health, a characterisation which enraged Shane van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin. The Kiwi duo, who each won three Supercars titles before heading to race in the US, slammed Howard’s framing of the Kostecki/Erebus break-up.
“The sport should be ashamed,” wrote McLaughlin on social media. “They know the full story and as per usual side step around everything and don’t say anything hoping the storm will settle like they always have. No protection for drivers ever.”
“What a sad situation to read about in Australia right now with @brodiekostecki,” said van Gisbergen. “I went through a similar situation 10 or so years ago – not being able to say much, plus the team and media setting the narrative out of your control is not fun.”
Whatever has gone down, Kostecki clearly finds the thought of starting the season with Erebus intolerable, even though the team has given him a title-winning car. And he also clearly feels he can’t speak publicly about his decision-making.
In the absence of a solid explanation a void opened, which has been filled by fevered conjecture, with a popular theory suggesting a massive bust-up behind the scenes between Kostecki and senior Erebus leadership, perhaps as early as August last year. Fans are picking through the social media feeds of suspected protagonists, looking for evidence. Van Gisbergen’s former team boss Roland Dane accused Erebus of running a “toxic workplace”, leading to the split.
For their part, the Erebus team appears to be in the denial stage of the breakup, saying: “Contrary to media reports, Brodie Kostecki remains part of the Erebus Motorsport family and is a valued member of our team.” Erebus boss Barry Ryan told V8 Sleuth: “We’re just supporting each other because we know the truth and we know some of the stuff in the background is just so blown out of proportion.”
The truth is a much-desired commodity right now, but some of the companies who’ve been paying for Erebus to go racing aren’t waiting to find out what happens next. Heavyweight sponsor Coca-Cola has walked, along with at least two other backers. An Erebus Camaro has been spotted testing, painted in plain white rather than the fizzy-drink giant’s famous red.
As the narrative wobbled out of control, Shane Howard was forced to pump out a second statement, for “clarity and context”. In it, he denies Supercars had taken the side of Erebus over the champion driver. Howard said he was in touch with both Kostecki and Erebus, the matter was ongoing and confidential, but he found some of the “considerable commentary” among media and fans “disappointing”.
Being straighter with the media and fans from the beginning might have helped. And so would forcing Erebus to come clean, or allow Kostecki to tell his truth without fear of recriminations. A dispute aired in public would barely be worse than the current situation. It’s no coincidence that the only drivers who feel they can speak candidly about the situation are McLaughlin or van Gisbergen – because neither race in Australia any more.
The DNA of the modern Supercars series can be traced back to the 1990s, when the Australian Touring Car Championship adopted the V8 formula and then the V8 Supercars name.
Legendary drivers like Peter Brock and Dick Johnson were already household names, but an explosion in the sport’s popularity introduced a new generation of heroes, like Craig Lowndes, Greg Murphy, and plenty of others.
Johnson, more than most, was known to speak his mind about the quality of his competitors and how the sport was being organised, often live on television – while driving at top-speed down Bathurst’s Conrod Straight. Rather than resisting such candour, the sponsors loved it, and Johnson’s team was among the best-supported in pitlane.
Fast forward to the 2020s and it’s clear from the frenzied social media discussions surrounding Supercars that the drivers are still at the core of the reason people engage with the sport, even more so now the tribal warfare between Ford and Holden has started to dissolve, along with Holden’s presence in Australia. Though the social media age appears to have made brands and, especially the sports owners, far less tolerant of criticism and bad press.
Van Gisbergen got a taste of this in practice for last year’s season-opening race in Newcastle, when he voiced his concern that the new-for-2023 Gen 3 Supercars were sometimes too hot to drive. SVG felt sufficiently muzzled by forces behind the scenes who were angered at his public feedback that he self-censored, leading to a famously awkward post-race press conference where he said almost nothing.
“Unfortunately that upset some of the top brass and hence my adopted media strategy for Sunday,” he explained on Facebook. “‘If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say it at all,’” adding, “I am not going to pretend it’s all roses when it is not.”
By the time van Gisbergen’s Nascar future in the US was looking more concrete, he felt less restrained, telling American racer-turned-podcaster Dale Earnhardt that racing a Gen 3 Supercar “sucks”, and he’d grown to find the experience “mind-numbing.”
Kostecki, on the other hand, clearly loved the experience. The Gen 3 cars were new to everyone in 2023, and he adapted better than the rest to take his first championship in only his third full season.
Whether he’ll be around to defend that title in 2024 with another team is, like this whole mess, unclear, given how little concrete information there is for fans to work with. That can only hurt the sport’s appeal in a year with plenty to look forward to, including five fulltime Kiwi drivers.
Former Bathurst winner Paul Morris, who mentored Kostecki from his early days as an unvarnished talent, recently said Supercars needed to better promote its stars.
“I followed Peter Brock because I thought he was charismatic and I wanted to be him. That’s what we need to do a better job of, I think. And get in touch with the youth,” Morris told Greg Rust on the KTM Summer Grill. “Where are the stars? Who’s telling the Brodie Kostecki story?”
At the moment, no one is. And that’s a major problem.
Veteran Sam Cane is given his farewell test appearance.