Erebus riding wave of confidence into Albert Park

Erebus Motorsport is riding a wave of confidence into the Beaurepaires Melbourne SuperSprint as it leads Supercars’ teams’ championship.

Brodie Kostecki sits second in the drivers’ championship after being credited with finishes of third and sixth at the Thrifty Newcastle 500, while Will Brown is sixth in the standings.

“The two tests and Newcastle have given us a bit of confidence we’re in the right area with the cars and it’s good,” Erebus CEO Barry Ryan told Speedcafe.com.

“We disappointed ourselves on Sunday at Newcastle a bit – just made a couple of little errors – but the best thing is we learnt what we did wrong and we can make sure we don’t do it again.”

Kostecki showed consistent, if not absolutely front-running, pace on the Saturday in Newcastle, although Erebus had to strategise their way to a result for Car #99 on the Sunday after he qualified 15th.

“We got a good result in the end,” said Ryan.

“We should have qualified better but it was something we just did that we didn’t think was going to be so critical and it was compared to the old car.

“So, you learn those things; it’s better to learn it now.”

The Erebus boss is bullish about the team’s prospects this year, despite the balls being thrown in the air again this weekend.

The Albert Park event is the only one of the year to feature mixed tyre compounds, being the first of the year with the super softs and the only one with the hard rubber.

It is also a vastly different track to the only other one on which the Gen3 cars have raced so far yet, being a Formula 1 event, Supercars has just two half-hour practice sessions today before a quick turnaround into a pair of qualifying sessions – one on each tyre compound – and then a race at the end of the day.

“It’s no different to normal; it’s the same for everyone, so it doesn’t really worry me,” he said.

“We’re right to go. We’ve got a good plan and both the drivers and engineers know what they want to do, and try and learn off both cars.”

Practice 1 starts at 11:25 local time/AEDT.