How about Hazelwood though, goes from being dropped from a single car grid-filler team to the defending teams champions.

This is the news no one saw coming, it all seemed so rosy last year. Interested to see where this goes before making a judgement on it. But I will be disappointed not to see the #1 circulating this year if Kostecki is not driving.

What teams, if any, would be prepared to pay out one of their contracts to hire Kostecki for this year (if he stays in Australia)? PremiAir is probably the only one that comes to mind in terms of financials and quality of driver line-up.

Seriously sucks if true. First guess would be that Brodie's NASCAR opportunities are ballooning and starting to interrupt his Supercars programme.

Imagine if we saw him run enduro's only, teaming up with Will Brown in #87 

I think that Betty will be very pissed off with being stuffed about by drivers. I think that is at least 5 who had contracts and left, albeit one still alleged.

I would not surprise be if she sells out her share of the team. Barry may keep his share though.

Maybe it would be a good idea to retire with a winning year.

This is huge and quite odd.  The guy should be on top of the world right now.

So I am going to put myself in BK's shoes:  Let's say I want something bigger and want it right now.  NASCAR?  There is no talk of him over here.  Childress already has his two car team in Kyle Busch and his grandson Austin Dillon.  Those two are not going anywhere soon.  RFK (Keselowski) is talking a third team, but.... nothing yet.  That leaves the Xfinity Series. 

Now, SVG is coming over here to run a mixed schedule.  Brodie might want something like that?  But I will tell you this - had SVG not won the Chicago race on debut, he would be getting little ink in the news, a la Marcos Ambrose when he started over here. 

Maybe move to another Supercars team?  If not RED Bull TER, who then?  Maybe DJR or Tickford?  Both stretches. The latter two maybe good for the long term, but not a step up short term.  BJR could always jam him in a fourth car but that would be a step back IMO.  Why would he even consider a step down as such?

Or maybe he is looking at the parody adjustments for 2024 and getting out while on top?  The Fords 'should' be better and the Chevy drivers will have more to deal with.

Maybe a sports car deal in Europe?  No news of him and IMSA here in the States.  I cannot think open wheel at this point in his career.  All of this is also a stretch.

Or perhaps he just wants more money?  A bigger slice of the pizza?  Who knows.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  The off-season just got way more interesting.

This isn't April 1st, is it?

It seems to me that Barry Ryan strikes again.
During the season there was a couple of quiet rumours of unrest but the fact that both drivers were going really well sort of scuppered them.
It appears that Will was the smart one negotiating his release to join 888 Racing.
I don't think Brodie will end up anywhere else, certainly not this year.
He has already spent a fair bit of his life in the USA and my guess is that is where he will end up, even if he doesn't get any sort of drive this year. He may be lucky enough to keep his hand in by picking up some drives in the lower classes.

surely only logical place brodie could move to would be PremiAir ?

interesting no more news has appeared.

What makes people think that if Brodie were to drive this year, he would win any races. In 2023 Chevs were on the top side of parity and SVG was disheartened by GEN 3.  See what happened in the last two race meetings when the Fords had some kind aero parity, they won.  This year aero should be exactly the same.  888 won't have the distraction of SVG, and could be up to 4 Ford teams with the chance of winning.  I think Brodie knew what his chances this year would be like and pulled the pin so it wouldn't affect his chance with NASCAR.

 

Nice way of saying Brodie is still under contract with Erebus but he's not happy and refusing to race.

Wondering if Erebus put pressure on Brodie to concentrate on the tite defence and not let him play in the US.

Quote from: AlbertM on January 31, 2024, 07:42:50 PMNice way of saying Brodie is still under contract with Erebus but he's not happy and refusing to race.

Wondering if Erebus put pressure on Brodie to concentrate on the tite defence and not let him play in the US.

will be a big step behind missing 300 points (or whatever they are going to put up for 1st this year) in round 1.

it really is a puzzling one for sure.

very quiet and secretive

feeling pretty disappointed for Betty more than anything else over all this crap... SC changes the rules so she gets no benefit from the Teams Championship (first garage for the season) and now no number 1 on her car for (I think) 2024...

unless it is a personal matter that they have given Brodie leave for I find it hard to think he'll be in for any of the season?

It's hard to know what the situation is. Rumours of discontent, but the news articles today from Supercars do give the impression it is a more personal topic.

If it is a disagreement with Barry Ryan then I don't feel sorry for Betty. If there are recurring issues with drivers and Barry is the common denominator then it is clear what needs to change.

It was also unusual to have the Supercars CEO make a statement. I think Erebus would have had to to word their statement in a way that it was Brodie's choice as otherwise they would be in breach of contract.

Another strange part to me is that only half the sites reported AVL (Speedcafe)'s scoop - others have very much toed the line of the Erebus statement.

I just hope that Brodie is OK and sorts out whatever the distraction or problem is.

PS: it was not a Speedcafe scoop. In fact, their report was well behind the daily newspaper report.