BRODIE Kostecki was welcomed back into action with a wet and wild hitout at Taupō Motorsport Park that ultimately fetched him an eventful 13th place.
After sitting out the first two rounds and six races of the season, Kostecki snuck in a test at Winton prior to making his official return to competition.
In partially wet conditions this morning, the 2023 champion narrowly outqualified teammate Jack Le Brocq (15th versus 16th) before all hell broke loose in the race.
Kostecki clawed his way forward before blotting his copybook by outbraking himself and barrelling into James Courtney, in an incident that also impeded David Reynolds.
Slapped with a 15-second time penalty, the #1 TFH Camaro driver managed to recover to 14th at the flag.
That became 13th, after Matt Payne was demoted via a post-race five-second penalty for Lap 58 contact with Thomas Randle.
Although not quite at the pointy end of the field as he’s generally been in the Gen3 era, Kostecki branded his Saturday in Taupō “an okay day”.
And with Le Brocq finishing a fine fifth, Erebus Motorsport gained a place in the teams’ championship to now sit fourth – just 18 points behind Team 18.
“I didn’t quite maximise qualifying, had a bit of a run-in on-track and didn’t quite get the prep to start my lap with a drying track,” he said in an end-of-day video.
“The race was wild… we both made it through Turn 1 which was pretty good. There was a lot of cars getting taken out off the start there.
“Unfortunately I got parked in a little bit during a pitstop which put us back in the running order a fair bit.
“The car was bloody fast, I just didn’t maximise it and made a mistake and ran into Dave Reynolds and someone else, I’m not actually quite sure, I will have to go back and have a look. I was in way too hot.
“But excited about tomorrow, it looks like it could be wet again tomorrow but I just want to thank all the fans for hanging out today. It was very, very wet out there, I was getting wet inside the car, so just thanks to everyone that was standing out there in the rain.”
