Brodie Kostecki Dethrones Shane Van Gisbergen, Wins Australian Supercar Championship

Australian Supercars legend Shane van Gisbergen has already taken the NASCAR world by storm, winning in his NASCAR Cup Series debut at the Chicago even though he had never even driven an American stock car before. Van Gisbergen will make a full-time switch to the world of NASCAR next year, but he will not do it as the reigning champion of the Australian Supercars series where he made his name.

That honor goes to Brodie Kostecki, the lead driver at an Erebus Motorsport team that had won just seven Supercars races in its history until Kostecki arrived in 2021. Kostecki won six races this season alone, building a modest lead on van Gisbergen and holding onto it even after his rival van Gisbergen won the marquee Bathurst 1000 in dominant fashion last month. Kostecki officially clinched the title in the first race of a two-part season finale weekend on Saturday, making him a Supercars champion in only his third full-time season.

Van Gisbergen, whose season has included five wins of his own to date, leaves the world of Australian Supercars as a three-time champion, 81-time race winner, and three-time winner of the Bathurst 1000. He now embarks on a plan to race across multiple series as a 34-year-old prospect for Trackhouse Racing, the team behind the Project 91 program he ran for in his Chicago win. Kostecki will stick to Supercars in 2024, but he will build on a single start for Richard Childress Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series last year by running a few additional races in America, too. Richard Childress, whose team is partnered with Kostecki's current Australian employers Erebus, says that his 2024 schedule may even include races on ovals.

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