Why Brodie Kostecki can’t afford to play it safe in Supercars endurance races

Series leader Brodie Kostecki has vowed to stay on the attack during the critical Supercars endurance season, saying he can’t afford to play it safe in a bid to defend his championship lead.

Series leader Brodie Kostecki has vowed to stay on the attack during the critical Supercars endurance season, saying he can’t afford to play it safe in a bid to defend his championship lead.

Ahead of the start of the Supercars endurance races at the Sandown 500 this weekend, the Erebus Motorsport star holds a 137-point buffer in the championship battle over Triple Eight rival Shane van Gisbergen.

While Kostecki acknowledged it was a handy buffer, he said the big points on offer in the next two races at Sandown and Bathurst meant the scenario could change very quickly.

Each of the Supercars endurance races is worth 300 points, which has the potential to make or break a championship bid.

Kostecki, who has won a season-high six races this year, said he could not yet afford to “sleep” on his series lead with four races left in the season.

Kostecki is the current series leader. Picture: Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images

“I’m out there to win races, the championship will look after itself,” Kostecki said.

“I’m out there to get the best result I can and I would like to win these few races coming up, especially Bathurst and so would the team as well.

“You can’t really sleep on anything, or anyone, and there is still a fair bit to play out for the rest of the year.

“To get that points lead coming into enduros is quite cool, but it can also disappear quite quickly with how much these races are worth.”

Kostecki will team up with co-driver David Russell for the third straight year for the enduro campaign, hoping to improve on their third placing at Bathurst together in 2021.

The 25-year-old set himself up for an endurance season assault with a clean sweep of the three race wins at Tailem Bend last month.

Kostecki was confident of the team’s form leading into Sandown – and his prospects of holding onto his title lead for the rest of the year.

Kostecki says the cars have been strong all year. Picture: Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images

“The cars have shown that they’ve been strong all year and they have come from Tailem Bend and won all three races there leading into the enduro season is a great way to show the team that we are in for the fight,” Kostecki said.

“We’ll just keep our heads down and there are still plenty more races up for grabs and we’ll see how many we can try and win before the end of the season.

“The team has done a fantastic job this year, we’ve executed every time that we’ve had to.

“We did have a bit of a rough mid-season there on the car 99 side and had a bad two rounds and it’s quite strange now a bad round is finishing fifth or sixth.

“We really recovered after those and had a strong Sydney and we were strong at Tailem Bend. It will be exciting to see how the back half of the season plays out.”

Rating Sandown as his favourite track, Kostecki said he was eager to see how team various team strategies would play out after a change to the compulsory pit stop regulations for this year’s endurance races.

There will now be no minimum compulsory pit stops for Sandown or the Bathurst 1000. Previously, the last Sandown 500 in 2019 had a minimum requirement of three pit stops, while Bathurst had seven.

“I think most of the teams will converge to the same outcome anyway, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out,” Kostecki said.

“Some teams might do something a bit different depending on how their car is handling and what not.”

Originally published as Why Brodie Kostecki can’t afford to play it safe in Supercars endurance races