AUTO ACTION feature: Kostecki is the real thing

In AUTO ACTION’s latest issue, our Supercars guru Andrew Clarke sat down for an exclusive chat with Brodie Kostecki to find out who the man behind this year’s orange numbers really is!

Kostecki is known as a man of few words in the main-game paddock, but Clarke got to the bottom of what makes him tick, and as he’s shown all the way from California to Australia, he’s not a driver to take a step backward.

Having raced everything in the states at a young age from open wheelers to NASCAR late models and NASCAR K&N Pro Series East, AUTO ACTION takes a dive into what’s made Kostecki the current Supercars leader in his own words. Starting from his first memories of the driver, Andrew Clarke reports…

It felt like Brodie Kostecki burst onto the scene as a Bathurst co-driver in 2020 when he mixed it with, and beat, the best when main driver strategies misaligned with the #99 Erebus car. From Perth via California, Kostecki showed he disliked taking backward steps. He wasn’t intimidated by stature or reputation. He wouldn’t get out of the way of anyone… even Jamie Whincup. 

AUTO ACTION’s latest issue features a rare indepth interview with Brodie Kostecki. Image: Mark Horsburgh

After a Safety Car early in the race, Kostecki was left sitting in third with Cam Waters and Tim Slade (also a co-driver, but only just out of a main game seat) in front of him, and Garth Tander (same disclaimer as Slade) and Whincup lined up behind. He defended Tander, who would go on to win the race with Shane van Gisbergen for eight laps. 

Then Whincup moved in, and he seemed a little less patient and, on the third lap of following, stuck his nose up the inside of Kostecki at Griffins Bend. Running the high line, Kostecki held him out. Refusing to concede, Whincup then sat on the outside at the kink heading into The Cutting and drifted into the wall. 

Kostecki was now firmly in the spotlight and no longer easily dismissed as an iRacer from the Kostecki clan that had his cousins Jake and Kurt on the track and with whom he raced on debut the previous year. 

Kostecki reveals the exclusive details of his own journey to the top of Supercars in AUTO ACTION’s latest issue

When David Reynolds and Anton De Pasquale departed Erebus at season’s end, team boss Barry Ryan and his crew turned to Kostecki and fellow main game rookie Will Brown in a bold move that today looks like an inspired decision. 

With not even 100 races to their names, Kostecki and Brown sit first and fourth in the series, and Erebus leads the teams’ title. 

Kostecki’s climb to the top has been rapid, but it is the end result of leaving Australia aged 12 to pursue a career in the States, where he graduated from karts into cars at an age when most Australians would still be dreaming of such a move. It set his path as a racing car driver, and now, he is a serious contender in the biggest show in Australia, and who knows, maybe he’ll head back soon to take on NASCAR again as a sideshow. 

“It’s sort of a bit of a funny one to ask, but yes and no,” he says to a question about whether he is surprised to be leading the series after eight races. “I’m not really surprised at how we’ve gone so far. When I first signed on with Erebus, it was all about Gen3 and not so much about the cars that we raced in the past. 

“There’s been a lot of effort and time that’s gone into Gen3 from the Erebus side of things, so I’m not really surprised but very fortunate…

To read the full feature and to hear about racing from Brodie Kostecki’s side of the fence, download AUTO ACTION’s latest issue by clicking here, or buy the print magazine from all leading newsagents or stockists near you.

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