Erebus Motorsport has recorded a mixed bag of results in a dramatic Supercars Eseries opener, with Jarrad Filsell claiming the team’s best result of fourth.

Meanwhile teammate Brodie Kostecki clinched eighth in the All Stars Series, and Erebus Academy racer Jobe Stewart suffered some bad luck to secure P18.

RED BULL RING

The Pros were up first for last night’s proceedings, with Jarrad and Jobe tackling the Red Bull Ring from P6 and P17 respectively.

At lights out, Jarrad was quick off the line and took fifth after a nice move down the inside at turn one. Meanwhile Jobe was stuck in the pack and contact from Sam Blacklock on the opening lap saw the #9 Holden spun into the gravel, ultimately losing five positions.

The rest of the race was relatively uneventful for Jobe who rejoined the pack in 20th after taking his compulsory stop on lap six. Jarrad went one lap longer before pitting for clear air, and although it was a slow stop he managed to gain a position out of it when the field was cleansed.

Clean, fast laps and a number of penalties dished out in the final laps, including one on Blacklock for the earlier contact, saw Jobe advance to 18th before the finish line.

The fight for the final podium spot went right down to the wire, with Jarrad taking it to Jackson Souslin-Harlow and Jake Burton. Jarrad got the job done on Souslin-Harlow at the very end to claim fourth.

Jobe has his eyes forward to the next round, saying: “I wasn’t really too happy with 17th, I was a few tenths off what I had been doing in practice. I kind of struggled a bit with the session only being 10 minutes. I think for the next round, I definitely want to improve in qualifying and work on getting a lap together better, especially because it’s such a short session. I think the competition has gotten a little bit tougher, even though there’s pretty much all the same drivers in the series as last year. Obviously the opening lap kind of threw me off track, but besides that, I made an alright recovery.”

Jarrad added: “I was definitely expecting to qualify higher than sixth. I mucked up my first run which cost me a little bit but I think P6 was a decent recovery. With only one race per round this year, I was expecting it to be eventful. Every position is vital for the championship so it’s going to be consistency that prevails. My pit stop was disappointing but unfortunately I’m not in control of that, I had the slowest pit stop which was something that bugged me all of last year so that was frustrating. But overall, it was definitely positive from where we started in 6th and made it up to 4th.” 

CHARLOTTE

With a great understanding of oval racing, Brodie topped the timesheets early in qualifying to claim pole position and lead the field out. As the race went green Richie Stanaway stole the lead though the pair continued to exchange positions as racing got underway in Charlotte.

The Safety Car was deployed at the end of lap 16 and as racing resumed Brodie led the field back to green flag conditions before pitting at the end of that lap 19.

Unfortunately the #99 driver came into pit lane a little too hot, and was handed a 15-second time penalty for speeding on pit entry. Brodie served the penalty in that same stop though it quickly turned into 45-seconds when a rare pit road entry bug extended the time penalty.

The Boost Mobile Commodore rejoined the pack in 13th and was a man on a mission, moving up two spots by lap 30. A massive crash on the final lap involving three of the front-runners saw Brodie promoted to ninth before he gained one final position, crossing the line in 8th.

After the racing, Brodie said: “It was pretty cool to get pole position but it put us in a good starting spot for the first few laps where I was able to stay up the front. But then there was a bit of a debacle when the competition yellow came out and a few cars got their pitstops done for free, so I ended up a lap down. I then got a pit road entry penalty bug that rarely happens which saw me delayed for 45 seconds more than I should have been so that put us an extra lap down. We ended up P8, I sort of just ran laps around the track by myself. It’s the first online race since we did this last year so I think everyone is just getting back into the hang of things.”

The team now prepares for the second round of the Supercars Eseries next Wednesday, which will feature races at Pocono and Long Beach.

Racing will be broadcast live on Fox Sports 506, Kayo, 7Plus and Sky NZ, plus online on the team’s Facebook.